Story By: Lisa-Maria Goertz, Sub-Editor: Joana Mihajlovska, Agency: Newsflash

A 118-year-old man has become the oldest person in Mexico to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Catarino de la Cruz, 118, who belongs to the Huichol ethnic group, received the vaccine at the Rural Medical Unit (UMR) in the community of La Manga in the municipality of La Yesca in the central-western Mexican state of Nayarit.

The Secretary of Health shared an image of the man in a beanie hat and a mask after he received the vaccine.

They wrote on Twitter: “Don Catarino de la Cruz was born in 1902, is 118 years old, and lives in La Manga, La Yesca municipality, in the #Nayarit mountain range. Today he received the #VacunaUniversalYGratuita (free universal vaccine) against COVID19, which is applied first in the most remote areas.”

The news was met with consternation from some social media users, with ‘Trotador1320’ asking: “Why would you apply the vaccine in an area where the virus has never been proven to have reached?”

This is the third day of the vaccination rollout in the area, which aims to vaccine older adults with disabilities and includes home visits to rural areas.

According to the newspaper Meridiano, about 9,991 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been rolled out in the municipalities of Ahuacatlan, Jala, La Yesca and San Pedro Lagunillas after arriving in the state last Sunday.

The oldest recorded person in Mexico is 124-year-old Manuel Garcia Hernandez, who according to national newspaper Mexico News Daily, may also be the oldest person in the world. Manuel’s birth certificate shows his birth date as 24th December 1896.

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