Latin America and Caribbean have top COVID death rate

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Latin America and the Caribbean remain the region with the highest coronavirus death rate, with more than 394,000 fatalities or a third of the world’s total.

Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico are among the top 10 countries in terms of coronavirus cases, with over 8.4 million infections between them.

Brazil

A fire broke out at one of Rio de Janeiro’s main hospitals Tuesday, forcing rescue workers to evacuate at least 200 people.

Two patients with COVID-19 died during the evacuation process after their conditions deteriorated, according to the hospital’s management.

Firefighters took three hours to control the blaze in a warehouse located in the basement of Bonsucesso Hospital. Its cause is still unknown.

Brazil now has more than 5.4 million cases of the virus and nearly 158,000 deaths.

Mexico

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo reported that she has tested positive for COVID-19.

“Last night, I was informed that I tested positive for COVID-19. I feel good, strong and I am under medical monitoring from the Secretary of Health of Mexico City,” she said Tuesday. “I will continue working and coordinating all activities remotely, with the same effort as always,” she wrote on her Twitter account.

Sheinbaum attended a meeting on Monday led by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Mexico has 895,326 cases of the coronavirus and 89,171 deaths.

Ecuador

Ecuador will need about $150 million to purchase COVID-19 vaccines and immunize 60% of its population, Deputy Health Minister Xavier Solorzano said Tuesday as local authorities resumed restrictive measures in fear of a coronavirus resurgence.

The country, which is facing an economic downturn exacerbated by the pandemic, has signed supply agreements with major pharmaceutical firms including Pfizer Inc and BioNTech and the British firm AstraZeneca and it also participates in the COVAX program led by the World Health Organization.

"The initial amount is approximately 150 million (dollars) that we need to start, but that will guarantee that about 8 million people can be vaccinated. We are talking about 60% of the population," said Solorzano.

Ecuador has 163,192 cases and 12,588 deaths from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Honduras

On National Doctors' Day, health professionals in Honduras are mourning the loss of 49 of their colleagues who have died since the disease began to spread in the country more than seven months ago.

Health workers have been asking the population to avoid getting infected with the virus, which has already killed 2,633 people in the country and infected 93,966.

The pandemic is still on the rise in the country of roughly 9.9 million people, more than 60% of whom are poor and whose situation has been made worse by the deadly disease.

El Salvador

El Salvador is nearing the 33,000 positive cases of COVID-19 detected since mid-March, when the pandemic broke out in the country, and is close to 1,000 deaths from the disease, according to official data as of Tuesday.