The Secretariat of Health of the Mexican Government, through the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS) in coordination with the State Areas of Protection against Sanitary Risks (AEPRS), carried out, with a preventive approach, the monitoring of the water quality of beaches for recreational use with primary contact that have a great affluence of swimmers in the weeks prior to vacation periods, such as Spring Break.

On this occasion, seawater was sampled from 265 beaches in 70 tourist destinations in the 17 coastal states, including Baja California.

This analysis resulted in 260 of these beaches being suitable for recreational use, while the beaches of Rosarito, Tijuana I, and Hermosa beach in Ensenada, Baja California, exceeded the established limits of 200 NPM/100 mL of Enterococci, and are therefore considered as Beaches Not Suitable for recreational use.

To see the specific results of the different beaches in Baja California click here.

It is worth mentioning that this level of consideration of SUITABLE/NOT SUITABLE beaches, used by the institutions to establish if a beach implies a sanitary risk or not, is constituted in accordance with the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is 200 enterococci per 100 milliliters of water.

On the other hand, Cofepris emphasized that in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, classifying a beach as suitable or not, does not mean at this time that it is open to the public, so it urged the population to stay informed with local authorities about the color of the epidemiological traffic light in which they are, the permitted activities and capacity; to avoid an increase in infections.

At the same time, he added that the quality of water in tourist centers is an essential factor to guarantee the protection of the health of visitors who come into contact with it, which is why the health authority has been carrying out these tests since 2003 with a preventive approach.

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