The Undersecretary of Health affirmed that measures of this nature do not serve to prevent the spread of epidemics and affect the economy.
Mexico.- The Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion of the Ministry of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, assured that Mexico does not plan to close borders or prohibit the arrival of international flights due to the advance of the coronavirus, as announced earlier by the United States. .
However, the official assured that prevention measures will be reinforced at international airports in order to detect possible cases of imported Covid-19.
“We are going to scale -as planned from the beginning- screening, this early identification of people who could have symptoms, through temperature monitoring and through questioning of symptoms.”
Hugo López-Gatell
López-Gatell added that this measure is already applied from the early stages of the outbreak, but citizens did not notice it “because it was focused on flights from China” and will now be expanded to “flights from 10 countries with active transmission.”
Closing borders does not serve to stop the spread of the coronavirus: López-Gatell
In a press conference from the National Palace, Hugo López-Gatell stressed that the declaration of a pandemic by Covid-19 coronavirus by the World Health Organization (WHO) does not justify taking extreme measures that have a negative impact on the country’s economy. .
In this regard, he declared:
“It is not intended, I want to make it very clear, it is not intended to restrict international travel to Mexico, or close borders, or close seaports. These measures do not have a solid scientific basis. “
Hugo López-Gatell
“Throughout the history of epidemics, ” he stressed, it has not been detected that measures of this nature have helped “decrease the risk of transmission.”
On the contrary, closing borders and airports often has “very serious economic and social consequences” in addition to being “contrary to international health regulations and their essence, which, in a very formal way, indicates that scientifically validated, appropriate and appropriate measures must be used without affecting the international trade or the mobility of people ”.
Source: notimex
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