Acapulco, Guerrero — Five beaches across Mexico have been deemed unsuitable for recreational use. While the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) reports 98.5 percent of Mexico’s beaches meet safety standards, there were five that did not.
The agency reported that three beaches in Acapulco, one in Nayarit and another in Ensenada, are not suitable for recreational use during the holiday season. The agency explained that results from the Clean Beach 2021 program determined that due to over use, those five beaches did not pass the safety standards for enterococci as established by the World Health Organization.
Cofepris reported that in Acapulco, Playa Hornos, Playa Tlacopanocha and Playa Suave did not meet the water safety standards. Playa Sayulita in Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit and Playa Hermosa in Ensenada, Baja California also failed to meet those standards.
For this reason, those five beaches have been considered unsuitable for recreation use.
Cofepris reported that Playa Hermosa in Ensenada, Baja California is marked as not suitable by state and municipal authorities due to the health risk it represents from the constant discharge of wastewater in the area.
State health authorities and the National Network of Public Health Laboratories, in coordination with Cofepris, analyzed seawater samples from 270 beaches in tourist destinations in the 17 coastal states in order to determine whether or not they represent a health risk.
The results indicated that 265 of these beaches are suitable for recreational use, as they meet the requirement of having 200 or fewer enterococci per 100 milliliters of water.
The agency said the seawater sampling was carried out during the weeks prior to the current holiday season in order to obtain the geometric mean and generate a statistical value that allows them to indicate whether or not a beach represents a health risk.
The quality of water in tourist centers is a primary factor to guarantee the protection of the health of visitors who use the country’s beaches.
