Measles outbreaks continue to appear in the municipality of Mapimí in Durango, with 13 more cases, bringing the total to 18 positive cases and one death at the La Libertad ranch detected in the last two weeks. This brings the total to 40 positive cases across the state of Durango.
Aleida Sánchez Monreal, Deputy Director of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the Ministry of Health, explained that these are agricultural day laborers who arrived from the municipality of Chihuahua and are from indigenous regions.
Last week, five positive cases were detected, one of which died, and last Tuesday night, 13 more cases were detected, bringing the total to 18 positive cases in this area.
The official explained that all agricultural day laborers have already been vaccinated, not only in La Soledad who come to harvest melons and watermelons, but also in nearby towns and ranches in the same municipality.
These are, he said, people who come every year and who normally don’t stay in one place for long. Those who arrived in Mapimí are Rarámuri agricultural laborers from Chihuahua, Yaquis from Sonora, and Tepehuanos from Mezquital in Durango.
At the same time, health personnel are conducting a sweep in all Mapimí villages to prevent measles infections throughout the area, as some of the laborers had already been in the municipality for several weeks.
With this, Mapimí now ranks as the municipality with the highest number of infections, with 18 positive cases and one death. Nuevo Ideal is next, where around 15 cases have been detected, some of them in children under 15 years old. Durango, Canatlán, Santa María del Oro, and Mezquital are other municipalities that have registered at least one case.
He commented that in the Nuevo Ideal municipality, where 40 Mennonite colonies are located, 90 percent of the population has already been vaccinated; only 10 percent refused the vaccine.
Source: jornada
