Bolivia temporarily closes its border with Brazil …

From Friday, Bolivia will close its border with Brazil for seven days to avoid contagion with the Manaus variant. The announcement was made by President Luis Arce via the social network Twitter. The South American giant is going through a delicate epidemiological situation. It is only in the past 24 hours that Brazil has been responsible for around 90,000 infections and nearly 4,000 deaths from covid-19.

“As part of the measures to protect the population, we are ordering the temporary closure of the borders with Brazil, for 7 days”Bolivian President Luis Arce reported on Twitter. “In border towns where the circulation of covid-19 variants has been verified, their encapsulation will be coordinated with the corresponding autonomous territorial entities, establishing controls for their mitigation, as long as necessary,” added the president.

The border between Bolivia and Brazil stretches for 3,400 kilometers in a region of jungles and rivers. The Minister of Health, Jeyson auza He spoke about the temporary closure of this border and spoke about the residents of the border points. “We must also establish that, knowing the characteristics of the populations who live at the border, (…) measures that stifle the economy cannot be taken, therefore, as long as this border closure lasts, it is expected that it there is a daily border transit for the three hour period “, Explained Minister Auza, according to the morning report The reason from Bolivia.

Auza also indicated that the three-hour transit must be coordinated by the autonomous municipal governments of the border in accordance with biosecurity care and epidemiological surveillance measures. On the other hand, Auza affirmed that the Ministries of Health, Government and Foreign Relations can order – by ministerial resolution – the temporary closure of borders at other points as indicated by the epidemiological situation.

Local media in Bolivia’s border regions have reported an increase in infections, although circulation of the new variant of the virus has yet to be confirmed. The region of Beni, on the border with Brazil, is one of the most affected by covid-19 and due to the health collapse has already started referring patients to Santa Cruz.

Last Tuesday, with the arrival of 200 thousand doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, Minister Auza said at a press conference that will prioritize inoculation in border areas to avoid coronavirus infections. The Deputy Minister of Promotion, Epidemiological Surveillance and Traditional Medicine, María Renee Castro, indicated that the The epidemiological block with Brazil involves providing drugs, supplies, vaccines and nasal antigen testing to identify cases of covid-19.

On the other hand, The Bolivian government has extended until April 30 a supreme decree which regulates the measures to contain the pandemic. The decree allows sub-regional governments to be responsible for regulating opening hours at shopping malls, bars, social, sporting and cultural events. The country has 11.5 million inhabitants, to date it has more than 270,000 infections and 12,257 deaths. While its neighbor Brazil is currently the second country in the world with the most infections and deaths from coronavirus with more than 12 million cases and more than 320,000 deaths from the virus.