Newborn triplets in Mexico have tested positive for coronavirus only hours after they were born.

The two boys and a girl were born on June 17 in a hospital in the central state of San Luis Potosí to a mother who tested positive for the virus while pregnant. The babies contracted coronavirus before they nursed, ruling out the possibility that the disease transmitted through breast milk.

“This unprecedented situation, from a scientific point of view, occurred where triplets were identified and their tests for Polymerase Chain Reaction were confirmed on Saturday,” Miguel Ángel Lutzow Steiner, a spokesman for the state’s Ministry of Health, told Mexico News Daily.

The medical staff suspected the babies got infected through the mother's womb, as the virus passed through the placenta. According to the staff, post-birth infections need between two to seven days of incubation before they're detectable.

Health Minister Mónica Liliana Rangel Martínez also claimed the hospital is not responsible for infecting the babies.

“What strikes us, in this case, is that on the day they were born all three babies tested positive for coronavirus, which rules out any possibility that they have contracted it through a hospital infection,” Martínez told the newspaper Excélsior.

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