Virus-battered Mexico receives $3 million donation from the U.S. to tackle COVID19

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Mexico’s Health Ministry (SSA) launched a collaboration agreement that will represent a USD $3 million investment between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Science (FUMEC).

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico revealed on Friday that the Project contemplates serological surveys, the strengthening of epidemiological surveillance, training in risk communication, and mobility surveys on border populations.

It informed that through this program, “Mexico and the U.S. will collaborate to strengthen and upgrade the systems and increase human resources to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.”

Likewise, the HHS and the SSA will work together, through the CDC, with the National Public Health Institute and the Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference, in a prevalence survey of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the Mexican population, including people living in the border area in order to strengthen the understanding of the current pandemic.

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“This agreement seeks to strengthen the capacities for communicating risks to the population, especially to the most vulnerable sectors, as well as helping experts understand the movements of border populations and the risk of contagion and spread of COVID-19 between both country since as partners, neighbors, and friends, we are facing the current pandemic side by side,” said the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

Likewise, Mexico’s COVID-19 czar Hugo López-Gatell announced the U.S. donation to Mexico as part of the collaboration agreement during Friday’s news briefing to report the status of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

López-Gatell said Mexico has collaborated with the CDC for many years, which is resulting today in this donation from the U.S. government and thanked U.S. ambassador in Mexico Christopher Landau for and María Julia Marinissen, Health Attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, for their essential role in obtaining the donation.

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Christopher Landau took to Twitter to announce the collaboration agreement and the donation from the U.S. to Mexico and said that ”together, we can better understand and fight the pandemic.”

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