International
Peru leads global mortality rate after adjusting Covid toll
AFP/Editor
Peru on Monday more than doubled its official coronavirus death toll, becoming the country with the highest Covid-19 mortality per capita anywhere in the world.
The government said it had raised the count from 69,342 to 180,764 on the advice of a panel of health experts, which found there had been an undercount.
With the adjustment, Peru now has the highest coronavirus mortality per capita of any country, with 5,484 deaths per million inhabitants, according to an AFP count.
The country of about 33 million people previously ranked 13th in the world with 2,103 deaths per million, according to AFP’s data.
Hungary is in a distant second place with 3,077 deaths per million.
Peru has registered more than 1.9 million infections to date, and has in recent months suffered acute shortages of oxygen to treat coronavirus patients.
Prime Minister Violeta Bermudez said the toll was adjusted on the advice of a panel which suggested modifying Peru’s record-keeping criteria.
– Change in methodology –
The panel said in a report the existing methodology generated “an under-representation in the number of deaths due to Covid-19.”
The criteria were broadened beyond people who tested positive for the virus to include “probable” cases with “an epidemiological link to a confirmed case.”
They will also now include people thought to be infected with the virus who present “a clinical picture compatible with the disease.”
The panel, convened in April, was composed of experts from public and private health entities in Peru and from the World Health Organization.
“Thanks to the work of this team… we will have more exhaustive figures and figures that will be very useful to monitor the pandemic and take the appropriate measures to confront it,” Bermudez said.
Peru started its vaccination campaign on February 9, but it has been slow and has so far reached five percent of the adult population with at least one shot.
The Andean nation has battled a second pandemic wave since December, with a record of almost 13,000 infections on April 1.
There are nearly 12,000 Covid-19 patients in hospital, but the health system has been able to breathe a little since the peak of 15,547 occupied beds recorded on April 20.
The adjustment of the death toll came six days before Sunday’s presidential runoff race between right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist Pedro Castillo, both of whom have promised to speed up Peru’s immunization campaign.
International
Seven bodies found with signs of torture in Sinaloa
Mexican authorities discovered seven lifeless bodies on Wednesday, showing clear signs of torture, in the rural area of Culiacán, Sinaloa, just one day after the same number of bodies was found in several municipalities in the western state of Mexico.
Six of these seven victims were found along the side of the highway that connects Culiacán to Mazatlán, near Laguna de Canachi, according to local media reports, which also noted that messages addressed to a criminal group were found near the bodies.
This brings the total number of violent deaths in the region to seven within just 24 hours. On Tuesday, authorities reported more victims found in the municipalities of Culiacán, Elota, and Mazatlán.
Among the victims identified was a local cattle rancher named Ramón Velázquez Ontiveros, as well as a police officer from Mazatlán, who was killed by a motorcyclist outside his home in San Marcos.
International
Málaga paralyzed by new storm as torrential rains hit Spain
Thousands of people were evacuated and trains were suspended as torrential rains once again struck Spain on Wednesday, following the devastating floods that killed at least 223 people two weeks ago, most of them in the Valencia region.
The national meteorological agency (Aemet) issued a maximum, red-level alert for the Andalusian province of Málaga in the south, and for Tarragona in the northeast, due to the new DANA (isolated depression at high levels), also known as a cold drop.
The city of Málaga appeared to be the hardest hit by the rains, with more than 3,000 people evacuated from 1,000 homes near rivers, flooded streets, and the suspension of urban transport and train services to Madrid.
“Today Málaga is paralyzed,” said Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, to reporters. “I know it is a problem for citizens not being able to take their children to school or go to work, but after what we saw in Valencia, we need to ‘prevent’ and minimize the impact in terms of loss of life,” he added.
The storm also led to the postponement of a match between Spain and Poland in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis competition, which was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Málaga.
International
Hezbollah launches explosive drone strike on Israel’s defense headquarters
The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah claimed on Wednesday that it launched an attack with explosive drones against the Israeli army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The Iran-backed organization reported in a statement that it had carried out “an aerial attack with a squadron of explosive drones” targeting the site that houses Israel’s main defense institutions.
Hezbollah later stated that it also fired a barrage of rockets at the Glilot military intelligence base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military indicated that “sirens sounded in several areas of northern and central Israel following the launch of projectiles from Lebanon.”
It later clarified that “five projectiles were identified over the territory, and some were intercepted.”
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