RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Around 4 million people might already have had the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Peru´s Lima Metropolitan Area, according to seroprevalence studies conducted by the Ministry of Health (Minsa) in order to measure the evolution of the pandemic in Peru.
This information was confirmed by Deputy Public Health Minister Luis Suarez, in an interview with Andina news agency, in which he announced that the country is in final negotiations with three laboratories developing COVID-19 vaccines.
“The seroprevalence in the Lima Metropolitan Area is 39.6%, which means that nearly 4 million of its 10 million inhabitants have already been infected (with the virus),” the government official explained.
“The studies for the rest of the country have not yet been completed, and the final result might be around 30%. If the country has more than 30 million inhabitants, a third represents just over 10 million Peruvians, who might have been infected with the virus,” he added.
Various indicators
Suarez explained that the monitoring of the pandemic is supported by various indicators: incidence, which considers new cases on the epidemic or epidemiological curve; prevalence, which is the proportion of ill people at a specific point in time; and seroprevalence, which is the percentage of people with COVID-19 antibodies.
“The epidemic or pandemic curves allow us to see the evolution of the pandemic, (that is to say) if it rises, remains unchanged, or declines,” the government official explained.
“This (the epidemic curve) shows symptomatic cases, that is, cases whose symptom onset date is known, which is just over one million to date. Each region has its own epidemic curve,” he added.
On the other hand, seroprevalence studies allow us to see the proportion of people who have already been infected, including those who never knew they had COVID-19.