The Minister of Health of Panama, Luis Sucre did not rule out that in the country there are more people infected with the delta variant of covid-19, and warned that it could be dominant in the coming weeks.

Sucre confirmed last week the first community case of the delta variant detected in the province of Chiriquí, in a child under 14 years of age.

“In a week the delta will not dominate the panorama, however it could be happening in the following weeks, we already detected the first case in Chiriquí, a fourteen-year-old boy, there are two or three families that have had contact, we are waiting for the sequencing On the part of Gorgas, we are reinforcing genomic sequencing in Chiriquí ... the important thing that we all have to be clear about is that just as there is a delta variant and a case was detected, it is most likely that there must be more cases that have not been detected,” said Minister Luis Sucre.

He explained that for now it is known that the child under 14 years of age was infected with the delta variant by his nanny, however, they are awaiting verification from the Gorgas Institute.

He indicated that the minor presented mild symptoms, his relatives are isolated and a traceability of the nanny's contacts is being carried out.

The Minister of Health ruled out "for now" establishing new measures in the province of Chiriquí after the detection of this case.

He recalled that 17 cases of the delta variant were detected at the Tocumen Airport.

“Let us remember that we have the Tocumen Airport, the United States, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama is a transit country and receives a lot of tourism, most of the countries that surround us already have a high percentage in delta, we have managed to contain it to a certain point but already in Panama the safest thing is that we have one or another person infected with delta ”, he said.

Sucre urged citizens to apply the vaccine against covid-19 to contain the circulation of this variant.