BUENOS AIRES, July 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Argentina’s COVID-19 death toll reached 100,250 on Wednesday after 614 people died of the disease in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.
In the same period, tests detected 19,697 new cases of COVID-19, meaning there have been a total of 4,702,657 confirmed cases since the onset of the pandemic here in March 2020.
Of the total number of cases, 276,004 are considered to be active, with 5,092 cases in intensive care units (ICUs).
The percentage of ICU occupancy nationwide is 62.2 percent, while in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area it is 60.1 percent, the ministry said.
Argentina’s vaccination campaign is progressing, with 20,934,210 people having received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 5,142,383 people having received both shots.
Argentina has been one of the hardest-hit countries in the region in terms of cases and deaths per capita, with some 4.7 million confirmed infections and a death toll from the pandemic expected to pass 100,000 people later on Wednesday. Daily average cases have fallen since a peak last month and ICU bed occupancy is coming down, though still above 60 per cent nationwide.
“Every life that has gone is a great regret for me,”President Alberto Fernandez said in a speech last week. “I guarantee that we are not going to stop in these months vaccinating each and every Argentine man and woman.”
While developed countries like the United States have reduced fatalities with rapid inoculation programs, countries in South America have topped the charts for daily per capita cases and deaths, with vaccines rollouts stalled by slow supply.
Argentina, a country of some 45 million people, has carried out over 25 million vaccine jabs, though only 5 million people are inoculated with the full two doses, mainly using Russia’s Sputnik V, AstraZeneca’s vaccine and China’s Sinopharm.
Argentina’s government reimposed lockdown measures earlier this year amid a steep second wave of infections, some of which have since been rolled back. It has a strict cap on arrivals at the border in a bid to keep out contagious virus variants.
A local laboratory is now starting to produce Sputnik V to speed up inoculations and the country recently sealed a deal for 20 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine. — NNN-AGENCIES
