LIMA, Peru (AP) – The Peruvian government and the Pan American Health Organization are investigating whether the country has accounted for 27253 deaths from the new coronavirus, a figure that could be more than double the official number of deaths by COVID-19 in the country.
Peru already has one of the effects of the disease on the world. If a large number of suspected cases are confirmed, the death toll in Peru may exceed that of giant countries such as Spain, France and Italy.
Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti announced Thursday that thousands of death certificates indexed COVID-19 as one of many reasons for death, but were not included in the official death toll in the country because those affected had not undergone coronavirus testing before they died.
He stated that Peru had only indexed 19021 patients who died of COVID-19 because foreign criteria required a coronavirus from the death certificate directory and positive disease control for a death to be included in official statistics.
She described the new review as a component of an ongoing procedure for updating and verifying the country’s death statistics, although analysts said it gives the impression that the government is responding to growing public skepticism about the country’s numbers on the disease.
Many Latin American countries are grappling with a suspected sub-deal of their coronavirus deaths, however, the more than 27,000 potentially unnamed deaths in Peru appear to be one of the highest.
Chile counts coronavirus deaths according to symptoms, without requiring a positive test.
Mexico recorded 71,000 more deaths than expected by the pandemic, mainly for reasons such as respiratory diseases and hypertension. With relatively limited tests in the country, it is unclear how many of them actually had a coronavirus. The government is recently reviewing 8,000 death certificates listing a “possible coronavirus” as a cause of death, but they have not been included in the official death toll, now at 46,000.
Peru, a country of about 32 million, showed its first case of coronavirus on 19 March and conducted very little coronavirus testing in the first months of the epidemic. It is the first country to impose near-total quarantine that requires citizens to remain at home, but many were unable to comply because of the poverty and reliance on casual jobs that forced them to paint illegally for months of quarantine.
Intensive care sets and funerals across the country are overwhelmed, and the country has experienced one of the worst recessions in the world this year.
Opposition politicians have accused President Martín Vizcarra of intentionally hiding the actual history of the disease in Peru, a rate he rejected. He said last week that the arrival of the disease “was so brutal that it created chaos” and an erroneous account of the death toll.
As public tensions increased, Peru has gradually become more flexible in its death toll, adding 4,000 deaths last week.
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Eva Vergara contributed in Santiago, Chile and María Verza in Mexico City.