Mexican authorities are tracking hundreds of possible COVID-19 carriers

On March 18, Mexican authorities announced that, in order to prevent the propagation of COVID-19 , they are looking for citizens who could be carriers of the virus and who have had contact with other people, mainly on the states of Puebla , Jalisco , Aguascalientes , and Guerrero .

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Puebla

A four-member family , who had traveled to the United States , kept it a secret from authorities that they had several symptoms similar to coronavirus , as informed governor Miguel Barbosa.

He explained than an adult and two youths of that family teste positive to COVID-19 but that before that they were in contact for some time with neighbors from the La Vista private neighborhood and that the father, who is said to be a well-known businessman, attended a gym .

“If they had reported us [the symptoms] on time, we would have done what's needed to contain [the spread of the disease],” said the governor and added that health authorities are currently monitoring 140 people who were in contact with the family.

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Jalisco

For its part, Jalisco authorities announced that they are searching for people who were in flights from the United States some passengers of which have tested positive to coronavirus .

Jalisco’s governor Enrique Alfaro

informed that authorities are looking for approximately 400 citizens who traveled two weeks ago to Colorado , United States, and who could be COVID-19 carriers .

In a video published on social networks , Alfaro explained that these people took two flights to Vail and upon their return, had no follow up from health authorities.

The travelers returned to Mexico and some of them have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus , said Alfaro, without giving further information on the exact number of confirmed cases.

He said that these citizens are “the main front of potential infections ,” for it is known that some of them traveled to tourist areas in Jalisco and Nayarit on the following days.

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Aguascalientes

In Aguascalientes, the Health Institute is searching for all the passengers of the 2638 flight from Mexico City which had a 71-year-old man who came from New York and who later tested positive to COVID-19 .

“We have activated the protocol in those people who were in the flight. We are getting ready so that, as soon as we have the information, we can begin getting in touch with them, and of course, always respecting their privacy .”

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Guerrero

In Chilpancingo, the Autonomous University of Guerrero (UAGRO) was vacated after it was known that a student from that house of studies had tested positive to the novel coronavirus.

The Technological Institute of Chilpancingo and the State Supreme Court closed their door for it was known that the young female student was in those places.

UAGRO’s dean Javier Saldaña

explained that the student returned from Spain on March 11 and that she was not checked at the airport so she voluntarily decided not to leave her home.

Once in Chilpancingo , doctors of the local Health Ministry tested her but did not tell her the result; it was until a news conference that it was informed she was positive, although a test in Spain was negative, reason why she asked for a new one and urged the population not to condemn her.

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Tabasco

Tabasco’s Health Ministry

revealed that a person with COVID-19 was not in quarantine and had contact with 280 people so it is now looking for all of them to keep them under observation.

Minister Silvia Roldán Fernández

said that this state registered a similar event as in the “ case 31 ” in South Korea , in which a woman infected in China traveled to that country and did not follow the health measures , affecting over a thousand people and unleashing a peak in the epidemic . In Tabasco, the case involves a patient who traveled abroad and was positive to COVID-19 but had already gone to different places and had contact with tens of people in Tabasco.

Roldán Fernández did not reveal the identity of the patient but said they had already been identified and that authorities are looking for all the contacts .

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