Mexico City, Mexico — Health authorities say 23 samples of the Omicron variant have been identified in Mexico. Of the 23 cases, officials say 70 percent of the people infected have not been vaccinated.
The announcement came from the Ministry of Health on Tuesday, with López-Gatell explaining that their locations are concentrated in three states.
“So far we have 23 samples identified in the same number of people: three that were studied in detail and that we made known the past, and an additional 20 that were detected by sequencing (…) 70 percent of those who have been identified in the group had not been vaccinated,” explained Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary of Health.
He stressed that the fundamental prevention measure for the COVID-19 epidemic is to get vaccinated. He also said that the location of the cases is concentrated in three states, which include Tamaulipas, the State of Mexico and Mexico City.
Meanwhile, the official indicated that the 20 new samples were detected by sequencing in a national health institute, however, it has not completed its obligation to inform the National Epidemiological Surveillance System.
Given this, he recalled that all public health institutions and private agencies have the obligation to “immediately” notify the health authority.
Three of the detected cases, he said, had made trips to the United States, Costa Rica and Yucatán, respectively. The sequenced samples were taken between November 16 and December 15.
Just last week, Oliva López Arellano, CDMX Secretary of Health said that there were no additional cases of Omicron detected in Mexico City. Of the 25 known cases of the new Omicron variant in Mexico, 16 of them are in Mexico City, six in the State of Mexico and one in Tamaulipas.