[ad_1]
The Delta variant of the coronavirus, which has quickly become dominant in much of the world, is taking a heavy toll on dozens of developing countries, where immunization levels are insufficient to prevent an increase in cases from becoming a wave of deaths .
As the economies of Europe and the United States that have successfully weakened the link between infections and deaths have begun to reopen, poorer countries with low vaccination rates are in some cases entering their worst phase of the pandemic.
“The world thinks this epidemic is over,” said Fatima Hassan, founder of the South Africa Health Justice Initiative. “But we still don’t have enough vaccines in the system despite the global realization that the Delta variant is so devastating.”
The Delta variant first identified in India accounts for 95 percent of cases in South Africa where the genetic code has been sequenced. Less than 3% of people are fully vaccinated in South Africa, where vaccine deployment has been hampered by supply disruptions and, more recently, by a wave of political violence.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases sequenced in Indonesia, where only 6 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, are the Delta variant. South Africa and Indonesia have reported a record number of cases this month. In Indonesia, the total of 54,517 cases recorded on July 14 alone was four times the January level.
The same pattern is evident in much of Africa, which last week saw a 43% increase in deaths from Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization. Five countries – Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia – accounted for 83% of the deaths.
Africa recorded 1 million new cases in the past month, the shortest time to add that number, bringing the total number of infections across the continent to more than 6 million.
“The double barrier of vaccine scarcity and treatment challenges seriously undermines the effectiveness of the response to the pandemic outbreak,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director.
She blamed the upsurge in the more transmissible Delta variant and public fatigue to measures such as mask-wearing after more than a year of on-off blockages. The Alpha and Beta variants, first identified in the UK and South Africa respectively, have also been widely detected, she said.
In Europe, the UK and Portugal are among those facing an increase in Delta variant infections, but high vaccination rates have mitigated the impact.
In the UK, where more than half the population has been fully vaccinated, the death-to-case ratio fell from around one in 50 during the winter wave to one in 750. Despite daily case rates in the UK – United more than 40,000 – a figure that before the deployment of vaccines would have resulted in approximately 800 deaths per day – the current daily count is approximately 50.
In contrast, Namibia, with only 1.2% of the population vaccinated, records one death for 22 cases. Namibia’s daily rate of 28 Covid deaths per 1 million people is the highest in the world and well above peaks in the UK and Italy.
Tunisia, where an upsurge in infections is killing people faster than at any time during the pandemic, has the second highest Covid death rate in the world. In Mexico, an estimated 84% of cases are Delta infections, a possible warning that the variant could also settle in Latin America.
Trudie Lang, director of the Global Health Network at the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the Delta variant was a big factor in the upsurge, adding that new mutations would continue to gradually drive out old ones.
But it was important not to look at Delta in isolation, she stressed. The decline in compliance with social distancing measures in poorer countries, where many people had to work to live, was playing a significant role in the increase in deaths, she said.
“We’re tired because everyone wants to go on vacation and our kids want to go to music festivals,” Lang said of the impact of lockdowns in richer countries. “But if you’re a normal family trying to make a living in a Rio favela [de Janeiro] or a market stall in Dhaka, then fatigue during blockages is a whole different story. “
In South Africa, the situation is particularly dire in Gauteng Province, where not only cases but hospitalizations and deaths have reached record levels. There are more than 8,000 Covid patients in hospitals across the province, with more than 100 deaths per day.
Hassan, of the Health Justice Initiative, said vaccine suppliers, who had failed to fulfill their contracts with South Africa and some other poor countries, bore enormous responsibility in what she described as a crisis. In progress.
In South Africa, months of lockdown have contributed to the anger that recently poured into the streets in a wave of looting and destruction, she said.
“If we had had enough vaccines a few months ago, we would have been in a much better position to mitigate the impact of the Delta variant,” she said. “Vaccine makers are playing the role of God in a pandemic. Where is the world? Why don’t they send us 50 million vaccines? We really need it right now.
Source link
