Dealing with COVID-19 in Honduras
Manos Amigas has no coronavirus test kits, nor do other private or public clinics. Only the National Institute of Virology in Tegucigalpa is doing the tests. As of April 18, Honduras had conducted 2,535 tests, which is 256 tests per one million people, compared with 11,492 tests per one million people in the United States. Suspect patient cases in the Copan region are exclusively managed by the regional health authorities in Santa Rosa (a one-hour drive from La Entrada) and the tests are carried out in Tegucigalpa (a five-hour drive).
The government is working with limited supplies. Sometimes physicians and nurses are using trash bags as gowns. Some large companies have donated a small amount of supplies to maintain hospitals that have an intensive care unit where patients with severe health conditions are hospitalized. These hospitals are primarily in Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula. The public health system in Honduras, which has limited capacity to handle the coronavirus, is already compromised. They are still reeling from fighting more than 100,000 cases of dengue, a mosquito-borne tropical disease that caused an epidemic in 2019. About 10,000 dengue cases remain throughout the country.
As of April 18, Honduras had 472 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 46 COVID-19 related deaths. The first death was reported on March 26, 2020.
For up-to-date information on COVID-19 in Honduras go to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/honduras/
