Honduras reaches 223,000 Covid-19 infections and deaths total 5,853

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Honduras reached on Wednesday 223,000 covid-19 infections since March 2020, while the number of deaths has already reached 5,853, informed the state-run National Risk Management System (Sinager).

Of 3,791 new laboratory PCRs processed, 874 were positive, bringing the number of people infected to 222,992, the health agency said in its daily bulletin.

In addition, 64 new deaths occurred on different dates, bringing the total to 5,853.

Sinager also recorded 1,100 people hospitalized, of whom 54 are in intensive care units, 577 are in stable condition and 469 are in serious condition.

In addition, 214 new patients have recovered, bringing to 82,187 those saved from dying from covid-19 in a country of 9.5 million inhabitants, of whom about 70% are poor.

The National Virology Laboratory has processed 339,400 tests so far in 2021, of which 97,435 have tested positive, while deaths this year total 2,619, according to figures from the Health Surveillance Unit.

In the search for vaccines to curb the pandemic, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández announced today that his government does not rule out opening a trade office in China to buy the drug.

“If we have to look for a diplomatic bridge to buy the Chinese vaccine, as they have proposed, we will do it,” said the President, according to a press release from the Presidency.

The Honduran Foreign Minister, Lisandro Rosales, has been taking steps for a month to establish “diplomatic bridges” with the Asian country to acquire vaccines.

“Our foreign minister has been talking for a month or more about this possibility. And if we have to open a commercial office in China, we have to do it because it is in the best interest of the Honduran people; it is about people’s lives”, said the president.

He also said he hopes that Argentina, Chile, El Salvador or Mexico can “serve as a bridge” for Honduras to acquire the Chinese vaccine.

Honduras seeks “to acquire the Chinese vaccine and any other that is good for the Honduran people, but that we have it quickly. But, as we do not have relations with China, it is not easy for us to acquire it,” stressed Hernández, who supervised the inoculation process in southern Honduras.

With the 40,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V that will arrive in Honduras on Friday, people over 75 years of age in the department of Choluteca, bordering Nicaragua, will be immunized, said the Honduran president.