MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Dozens of Honduran migrants received COVID-19 vaccines in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Wednesday, according to Honduran first lady Ana Garcia.
Mexico’s Ministry of Health and Social Security Institute (IMSS) coordinated the vaccines for migrants at the Honduran consulate in the border town, which sits just north of Guatemala, Garcia said on Twitter from Tapachula.
“A anti-COVID vaccination day is underway for undocumented Hondurans migrants, and some documented, who remain in this Mexican city,” said Garcia, a lawyer who is married to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
About 150 migrants received the vaccines, according to the Spanish EFE news agency, which reported that the vaccination campaign has been under way since last week, with more than 600 people inoculated so far.
A spokeswoman for Mexico’s health ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Mexican officials boosted COVID-19 vaccines for migrants, including those who are the northern border with the United States, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control extended the so-called Title 42 order https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hundreds-migrants-vaccinated-against-coronavirus-us-mexico-border-city-2021-08-03 that allows U.S. officials to send thousands of non-Mexicans back to Mexico without the chance to seek asylum or other protections in the United States.
Authorities from the United States and Mexico have made efforts to reopen the border, which has been closed to non-essential crossings since March 2020 during the pandemic, though the restrictions remain in place.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison and Gustavo Palencia; editing by Grant McCool)
