Health brigades visit poor neighbourhoods in Peru

Members of the Peruvian army accompanied medical personnel to assist in identifying possible carriers of COVID in a low-income neighbourhood of Lima on Tuesday.

The tactical operation named Tayta, which in Quechua language means Father is a house-by-house search in the Villa Maria del Triunfo neighbourhood in the Andean capital.

The concept originated in the middle of last year (2020) in the midst of the worst of the pandemic in order to identify infected people and facilitate isolation to prevent hospitals from becoming overcrowded.

After the recent spike in COVID 19 cases, the government is implementing more of these operations, to contain a possible second wave of infected.

Hospitals are full, and many no longer have beds to care for those sick with the new coronavirus.

Doctors in biosafety suits visited more than 200 homes in the area and tested patients on the street, to avoid getting infected, while the military provided security in the work area.

The Peruvian Ministry of Health reported this Monday that the accumulated number of positive cases of COVID-19 in the country rose to 1,037,350 and total deaths surpassed the 38,300 mark.