A study, conducted in Mexico on random blood samples collected between February and December 2020, revealed that about a third of the population in the country may susceptible to the Coronavirus by the end of the last year.
Antibodies were found in 33.% of the samples that were taken from blood banks and medical laboratory tests in Mexico unrelated to COVID-19.
Levels of the presence of the antibodies differ significantly according to the rate of infection with the deadly virus across Mexico.
The highest exposure rate to the virus was in the northwest, from Baja California to Chihuahua, at 40.7% which means that about 41% of the local population were susceptible to the disease.
On the other hand, the lowest rate of susceptibility to COVID-19 was found in the western states, which extend along the borderline with the United States of America (USA).
Victor Borja of the Mexican Social Security Institute said the rate may have risen by up to 10 percentage points on average nationwide, after a sharp rise in cases in January, but even if the exposure rate is currently at 43.5 percent, the country is still far away of herd immunity.
The Mexican authorities have indicated that with nearly 350,000 virus-related deaths, and about 40 million Mexicans have been infected with the virus, the death rate could be just under 1 percent.
Moreover, the study indicated that about 86 % of those infected had developed effective antibodies, but about 14 percent had not developed those antibodies and could be infected again.
The Mexican authorities also announced that they had detected three cases of the South African strain of the virus last Tuesday, and the British and Brazilian strains had already been discovered in the country, but Mexico was testing a relatively low-impact strain.
Mexico has received about 22.6 million doses of the anti-Corona vaccine.
About 17 million doses were offered to more than 12 million people, some of whom received two doses, and this remains a small number for a country with a population of 126 million people.
Follow the latest news on Google News
