Mexico will receive a donation of US $3 million from the United States to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell announced on Friday. 

“This donation comes from collaborative work that we have had with the United States government, with the Department of Health and Human Services, and also due to the efforts of the United States ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, whom we thank a lot for these efforts and to Dr. Julia Marinissen, the United States health attaché in Mexico,” López-Gatell said.

He said the funds, which come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be used to strengthen Mexico’s capacity to manage the pandemic and conduct seroprevalence studies to identify people who have developed antibodies to the virus.

They will also fund studies to ascertain risks for specific population groups with a focus on migrant communities in the border region, López-Gatell said.

Since March, the border between the United States and Mexico has been closed to non-essential travel yet the region has become an epicenter of infection. 

The funds come as Mexico continues to see a steady number of new cases, which some experts suspect are just a fraction of the actual number of those infected.

The Ministry of Health reported 6,717 new coronavirus cases on Friday and 794 deaths, bringing the case total to 469,407 and the death tally to 51,311.

Mexico City has the highest number of active cases. Guanajuato, the state of México, Coahuila, Yucatán, Nuevo León, Tabasco, Veracruz, Jalisco, Puebla and San Luis Potosí also have more than 1,000 active cases, and together account for 66.5% of the active cases in the country.

Johns Hopkins University reported that globally 19,425,393 confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been reported and 722,303 people have died as of Saturday morning.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Infobae (sp)