Mexico's confirmed coronavirus death toll shoots past 164,000

FILE PHOTO: Employees of a funeral parlor move a stretcher with the body of a person who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), amid the COVID-19 outbreak, at the Iztapalapa neighbourhood in Mexico City, Mexico January 19, 2021. REUTERS/Gustavo Graf

Mexico added 1,368 confirmed coronavirus fatalities on Friday, bringing the running death toll to 164,290, while new infections rose by 13,051 for total cases to date of over 1.9 million, according to updated Health Ministry figures.

The hard-hit country's Health Ministry has acknowledged that the true number of cases and deaths attributable to COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the virus, is almost certainly much higher due to a lack of wide-scale testing.

Health brigades visit homes to check if there are people with symptoms of COVID-19, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues, in the Iztapalapa neighbourhood, in Mexico City, Mexico February 5, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Romero

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Editing by Leslie Adler)