Five deaths and 87 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus were registered in Argentina on Thursday, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
That takes the total number of people infected with Covid-19 in Argentina to 589, officials said.
The vast majority continue to be overwhelmingly located in the Greater Buenos Aires region. Of the new cases, 30 are patients from Buenos Aires City, 27 are from Buenos Aires Province and 12 are from Santa Fe Province. The regions of Chaco, Córdoba, Tierra del Fuego and Neuquén registered three new cases, while Jujuy and Santa Cruz recorded two. San Luis and Mendoza provinces said they had single new cases.
Health officials maintain that the vast majority are so-called "imported" cases – of the 87, 37 correspond to individuals with a history of recent travel to so-called "affected" areas, while 24 are a result of being in close contact with other individuals confirmed as having the virus. The Health Ministry said that at least 26 cases are under investigation and can not yet be defined.
"At the moment, in Argentina the majority of cases are imported, local transmission is detected in groups and the start of community transmission in the AMBA [Greater Buenos Aires] and Chaco regions is identified. In our country, strategies for the containment and mitigation of mortality and transmission coexist," read a statement from the Health Ministry.
Earlier Thursday, Undersecretary of Health Strategies Alejandro Costa said that 48.9 percent of confirmed cases were related to trips overseas, adding that 41 percent of those infected are men. He also stressed that while fatalities were more common in the 65+ age range, the most infected group was individuals aged between 20 and 59 years.
Deaths
A total of 13 people have now died from the coronavirus pandemic in Argentina, with three passing on Thursday and officials confirming that tests on a deceased victim, a 59-year-old from Chaco Province, recorded the previous day, had come back positive for Covid-19. The man, who was named on social media accounts as Rubén Bercovich, had returned from a trip to the United States 15 days ago, various outlets reported.
The other fatalities were two men from Buenos Aires Province, one aged 89 and the other 78, and an 82-year-old woman from Buenos Aires City.
A 59-year-old doctor from Rio Negro became the 13th fatal victim of the coronavirus in the country after 12 days in intensive care, official sources confirmed to NA.
– TIMES/NA
Comments