Bogota, July 18 (RHC)-- Doctors in Bogota, Colombia are calling for a return to a strict city-wide quarantine to slow coronavirus infections in the nation's capital, warning that medical services are close to collapsing, a leading medic said on Thursday.

The Andean country has reported over 165,000 cases of the coronavirus and around 6,000 deaths. Bogota accounts for more than a third of the country's total cases and over 20 percent of its deaths.

"We're in a critical situation," the president of the Bogota College of Medicine, Herman Bayona, told the Reuters news agency.  "We are close to collapse."

Colombian President Ivan Duque declared an ongoing quarantine to slow the spread of the coronavirus in late March.