Amnesty International said Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its health care workers.
The group said Mexico has reported 1,320 confirmed deaths from COVIID-19 so far, surpassing the US at 1,077, the UK at 649, and Brazil at 634
The report is likely to revive debate about Mexico’s extremely low coronavirus testing rate, with fewer than one in 100 Mexicans tested. While Mexican officials have bragged that all health care workers have gotten one test, that appears insufficient for people who face daily exposure over months.
Health professionals in Mexico have also held many protests over a lack of adequate personal protective equipment, The Associated Press reported.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice at Amnesty International, called the worldwide death toll of over 7,000 health workers “a crisis on a staggering scale.”
"Every health worker has the right to be safe at work, and it is a scandal that so many are paying the ultimate price,” he said.
Cockburn urged an international cooperative effort to ensure that every health care worker has adequate protective equipment.
According to figures released last week, 97,632 nurses, doctors and other hospital employees in Mexico have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began — about 17% of all the country’s cases at that point. Mexico’s health sector statistics are normally announced on Tuesdays, but there hasn’t been a report this week updating the figures.
Nurses accounted for 42% of those infected, doctors made up 27% and other hospital employees such as technicians, aides and maintenance and cleaning staff were 31%.
The government has claimed since March that hospital workers have had all the protective gear they need, but on several occasions hospital employees have blocked streets in Mexico City displaying what they said was ill-fitting, insufficient or substandard gear.
The Amnesty report also notes that “there have been reports that hospital cleaners in Mexico are especially vulnerable to infection. Many cleaners in health settings in Mexico are outsourced, which means they have less protection.”
