Coronavirus in South America: PAHO warned governments to avoid easing restrictions

With the exception of Venezuela, almost every country in South America is ‘doing it right’ and that is why they have achieved a decrease in cases and deaths from COVID-19the Pan American Health Organization said on Tuesday. But he also warned them: the worst thing they could do now is relax the measures.

“When the cases go down, it’s because we’re doing it right,” said Ciro Ugarte, director of health emergencies at PAHO, referring to the pandemic situation in South America. “We are in this phase because we are taking adequate measures, we are not relaxing them” because this would give the opportunity for the emergence of new variants, he explained.

Ugarte made his statements during PAHO’s virtual press conference from his Washington headquarters at a time when the Americas region almost doubled the number of infections compared to the same period in 2020.

Last week nearly 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 22,000 deaths have been recorded in the region, where Canada and the United States continue to report increases in cases, as do Costa Rica and Guatemala, among other countries.

In an attempt to explain why cases and deaths have declined in South America, Ugarte said that following a very significant increase in late 2020 and early 2021 -when internal and international travel has increased and measures such as distancing and the use of masks for family reunions during vacations and vacations have been relaxed- authorities took strict measures and started vaccination against COVID-19.

However, he indicated that in Venezuela “there is a plateau” and only 11% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Venezuela received the first shipment of vaccines through the COVAX mechanism on Tuesday United Nations: a batch of 693,600 doses of Sinovac vaccine. The country, which refused to authorize the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine initially designated by COVAX, Vaccination began in February with the Russian sputnik V.

PAHO said that Venezuela is one of the priority countries for vaccine delivery and this is working so that the next COVAX shipments can be specified, the multilateral mechanism created a year ago to ensure equitable access to vaccines around the world.

COVAX, which has been harshly criticized for failing to achieve its goal, said on Wednesday it had made significant progress: contracts for more than 4.5 billion doses worldwide and the shipment of more than 240 million in just six months to 139 countries.

However, in a joint press release with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other agencies it works with, COVAX said that “the global landscape of access to COVID-19 vaccines is unacceptable”.

At the World level, only 20% of the population in low- and middle-income countries received the first dose of the vaccinecompared to 80% in more developed and upper middle income countries.

By the end of September COVAX expects to have delivered 60 million doses in the Americas region, according to its supply projections, and reach 180 million by the end of this year. This includes contracts and donations.

The estimate is that by the end of 2022, it will have delivered 275 million vaccines to the region., although this may vary depending on availability.

Other countries of concern for PAHO are Guatemala and Nicaragua, with less than 10% vaccinated, and Haiti, with only 1% of its population protected.

Although countries like Canada, Chile, and Uruguay have two-thirds of their populations fully immunized, a quarter of the nations in the region still do not reach 20%. So far, only 28% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has completely completed vaccination.

“This inequity is unacceptable”said PAHO Director Carissa Etienne, referring to the difficulty that countries in the region have had to access vaccines.

“The big challenge is that more people have the complete vaccination throughout the region, ”said PAHO Deputy Director Jarbas Barbosa.

(With AP information)

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