Peru again extends suspension of flights with Brazil, India and South Africa

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Peru will keep commercial flights with Brazil, India and South Africa suspended until at least mid-July after the Government extended the suspension for two more weeks to reduce the risks of spreading the new variants of covid-19 that have emerged in those countries in its territory.

This was established by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) through a ministerial resolution published this Thursday in the official newspaper El Peruano.

Specifically, the measure extends from July 1 to July 15 the suspension of passenger flights from Brazil, India, and South Africa, where the outbreak of new variants of coronavirus has been recorded, as a preventive control measure to limit the risk of contagion.

The rule particularly affects existing regular air connections between Peru and Brazil, as the Andean country has no direct flights to the other two countries.

FOUR VARIANTS

Despite the precautions taken by the Peruvian government to prevent the arrival of the new variants of the coronavirus, the country is currently aware of the presence of four of them, the dominant one being C.37, also known as Andean.

The British, Brazilian, and, more recently, Indian variants are also circulating.

As this mutation of the Indian coronavirus is internationally known, the first case of the delta variant was confirmed in Peru at the beginning of June in the southern city of Arequipa, the only city where infections are on the rise again, unlike in the rest of the country.

But there is already evidence of its presence in Lima, the capital, so that the Minister of Health, Óscar Ugarte, predicted the day before that, “in the relatively near future”, it is likely that the delta variant will be the predominant one in the country.

DOWNWARD TREND

After suffering the worst peak of the entire pandemic in April, Peru is now experiencing a decline in the long second wave, which lasted more than five months.

Coronavirus infections are falling for the twelfth consecutive week, while deaths from the same cause also registered a downward trend in the last nine weeks.

According to the official balance sheet, Peru has more than two million confirmed symptomatic cases. More than 190,000 have died, figures that place the country at one of the world epicenters of the covid-19 pandemic.

To date, the Peruvian government has guaranteed over a million vaccines, of which some 7.3 million have already been administered, with 3 million people have already received the two doses.