Mexico City, Jan 18 (IANS): Mexico has registered 12 straight weeks of an increase in Covid-19 cases, with a "slight rise" in deaths and hospitalisations, Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.

There was a "big contrast" between the number of infections and the number of deaths, he stressed on Tuesday, thanks to a nationwide vaccination campaign against Covid-19 launched at the end of 2020.

"The good news throughout this recent wave and the previous one is that there is a big contrast between the increase in cases and the slight rise in hospitalisations and deaths," Lopez-Gatell told the media.

Immunisation makes the disease less severe, he said, noting hospital occupancy in general is at 8 per cent, but just 3 per cent for beds with ventilators or for Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the latest data, nearly 84 per cent of the population is vaccinated in Mexico as the country experiences its sixth wave of infections.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Mexico has logged 7,314,891 Covid-19 cases and 331,595 deaths from the disease, according to official figures.