By NewsDesk  @infectiousdiseasenews

Health officials in Peru have reported more than 68,000 COVID-19 cases to date, second to Brazil in South America. More than 1,900 deaths have been recorded.

Image/Robert Herriman

Lima continues to be the region with the highest number of infected by COVID-19 to date reporting some 40,000 cases.

Other regions reporting high numbers of cases include Callao (4968), Lambayeque (3479), Piura (2258) and Loreto (1704).

Last week, Pilar Mazzetti, head of the COVID-19 National Command told local media that between 1,500 to 1,600 members of the health system have been affected by COVID-19.

“We are calculating within the records that we have, because of a privacy matter, those details are not put, but what we have been able to collect, through our professional associations, is that we are around 1,500 to 1,600 people who are affected within the health system,” he said.

Mazzetti also stated that a similar number of personnel have been affected within the Peruvian National Police and the Armed Forces .

“Throughout this tough battle, we are going to have really  more and more people in health who are going to be affected,  and we know that,” he said.

In addition to health workers, another media report says forty-six Peruvian police officers have been killed by COVID-19 , among 3,873 officers who caught the disease while patrolling the streets to enforce the national confinement order, the government reported recently.

Interior Minister Gastón Rodríguez also stated “We have 360 hospitalized police officers and 17 in intensive care.”

Among those infected are 942 cadets from the Police School in the Puente Piedra district, north of Lima.

The high number of infections responds to the exposure that police officers have when controlling people who violate the measures issued to contain the spread of the coronavirus.