Coronavirus in Argentina: they isolate a town from the suburbs after confirming 53 infections

05/24/2020 - 16:21

• Clarín.com
• Society

The Villa Azul, which shares territory between Quilmes and Avellaneda, is one of the poorest in the province of Buenos Aires. In that neighborhood, 53 cases of COVID-19 were detected in the last hours, but it could be more because there are another 50 under study.

For this situation, the mayors of Quilmes, Mayra Mendoza , and Avellaneda, Jorge Ferraresi , ordered the strict sanitary isolation of the town. They seek to limit the movement of people.

They reached this decision after three days of operations of the Detect program (Strategic Testing Device for Coronavirus in the Ground of Argentina) in which more than 50 positive cases of coronavirus were confirmed.

Due to this situation, the Communes of Quilmes and Avellaneda, together with the National and Provincial Governments, decided to form an Emergency Operational Committee and continue with the DETeCTAr operations during the rest of the week.

Thus, there will be the support of Mobile Sanitary Units that will be provided by the Nation and the committee will have the participation of the Social Development, Health and Safety areas of both municipalities and the Province, with the goal of decisively addressing the outbreak of coronaviruses in the neighborhood.

The mayors of Quilmes, Mayra Mendoza, and of Avellaneda, Jorge Ferraresi.

Mendoza and Ferraresi supervised in the neighborhood together with the Buenos Aires Deputy Minister of Health, Nicolás Kreplak ; the national deputy Magdalena Sierra , and the provincial senator Emmanuel González Santalla .

During the inspection, 50 other suspected cases were also detected and the result will be known later. In this way, a total of 813 homes and 3,128 people were surveyed, where there were 125 swabs of which 53 were positive, leaving the 50 under study.

"This action is part of the municipal initiative Caring for ourselves in combination with the Detect plan, articulated with the Nation and the Province. These programs allow us to identify neighbors who have symptoms compatible with the virus to prevent the spread of the contagion and discuss the importance of continuing quarantine and use the necessary protection elements, "said Mayra Mendoza, who was accompanied by the local secretary of Health, Dr. Jonatan Konfino .

In addition, officials said that work continues on the search for probable cases of coronavirus in popular neighborhoods. In the door-to-door task, they went out to actively identify suspected coronavirus cases and, in turn, to notify the people who tested positive for the condition.