By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A Guatemalan migrant in U.S. custody has been hospitalized with coronavirus in the United States, the Guatemalan foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
It was the first case of a Guatemalan in U.S. immigration detention testing positive for the flu-like virus, the ministry said.
As cases of coronavirus around the world rise, concerns are mounting over how to prevent the spread of the disease among migrants currently in immigration centers and considered particularly vulerable.
“We’ve been informed by our consul in Tucson, Arizona, that a 45-year-old Guatemalan citizen in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Correctional Center of La Palma, has tested positive for COVID-19,” the ministry said.
On Tuesday, a Guatemalan migrant died and 14 others were taken to hospital after a riot broke out in a detention center in southern Mexico as tensions rose over the spread of the coronavirus.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Stephen Coates)
