Worst of pandemic over for Argentine capital

Buenos Aires, Sep 1 For Argentina's capital Buenos Aires, the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic is over, but there were still challenges ahead, the city's top health official said.

"The worst is already over, but we still have many cases per day," Buenos Aires Health Minister Fernan Quiros told reporters on Monday.

"We need to really maintain the people's focus on compliance with regulations, and the focus on tracking, testing and isolation strategy."

The country's early lockdown, which begun on March 20, is "necessary and timely" and has "avoided a health catastrophe", Xinhua news agency quoted Quiros as saying.

Argentina registered its first Covid-19 case on March 3.

Four days later, the country confirmed its first Covid-19 death, which also marked the first fatality in Latin America.

So far, the country has reported 408,426 confirmed cases and 8,498 deaths.

Buenos Aires accounts for 94,331 of the total cases and 2,290 fatalities.

( With inputs from IANS )