Pedro Castillo said that the Ministry of Health has developed a great effort to deal with the new wave of coronavirus. | Photo: @PedroCastilloTe

Lima, January 8 (RHC)-- Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has urged authorities and citizens to be extremely careful in the midst of the increase of COVID-19 cases, during the third wave of the pandemic currently affecting the country.

"We are in the third wave, we do not know what its dimension will be, but we must be prepared to control it," said President Castillo during a session of the Council of Ministers.

Pedro Castillo noted that the Ministry of Health has developed a great effort to face the recent increase of coronavirus cases, aggravated by the presence of the Omicron variant.  The number of cases of infection with the omicron variant in the South American country rose to 332 cases. In December, the number of infections in Peru doubled to 1,500 new cases per day.

For their part, Peruvian health authorities warned of an increase in the disease among children.  In this regard, the coordinator of the intensive care unit (ICU) of the National Institute of Children's Health in Lima, Daniel Anchante, expressed concern about the increase of 20 to 30 percent of Covid-19 infections in children and adolescents in the Peruvian capital.

Peru is seeking to contain the third wave of the pandemic by reducing the number of people entering shopping centers and vaccination to avoid mass infections. It also extended the curfew between 23H00 and 04H00 local time, in force since this Friday.

To date, the South American country has accumulated more than two million cases of Covid-19 and more than 202,900 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020.