COVID-19 cases fall in American countries, but the pandemic continues, PAHO warns

Covid-19 cases decreased in the Americas region for the eighth consecutive week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) highlighted on Wednesday, although it warned that this does not mean the end of the pandemic.

North, Central, South America and the Caribbean have been registering downward trends in infections and weekly deaths from coronavirus, with some exceptions.

In addition, hospitalizations were reduced, and the cases that require hospitalization are mostly unvaccinated.

“The decline in cases and deaths shows that our approach is working and it is essential for everyone to stay on track until everyone is vaccinated,” Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Deputy Director, said at a press conference.

“However, this is not the end of the pandemic for sure. We must remain alert ”, he emphasized.

Barbosa called for maintaining public health measures to curb infections, and to continue working to achieve vaccination coverage per country of 40% by the end of the year and 70% by mid-2022, a goal set by the World Organization of the Health (WHO).

“The pandemic is still with us and will remain for weeks and months. And we cannot have the false impression of security that it is over. It’s not like that, ”he said.

Priorities

In Latin America and the Caribbean, where immunization is advancing but there are lags in several countries and access to the vaccine remains uneven, Barbosa asked to prioritize doses.

“In some countries, we have seen that vaccine doses reach all levels of the population before a high percentage of vulnerable groups are fully immunized,” he said, without giving further details.

The elderly, front-line workers and people with pre-existing conditions should be the first to be vaccinated “to protect them, but also to prevent health systems from being overloaded with serious cases,” he said.

Once the most vulnerable are protected, the highest possible percentage of the adult population should be immunized and “only afterwards” should the youngest be considered vaccinated.

Barbosa recalled that there is no evidence that vaccinating children and adolescents should be a prerequisite for reopening schools.

Extra dose of the vaccine?

PAHO also does not advise giving an additional dose of the anticovid vaccine in a generalized way.

Currently, it recommends administering it only to immunosuppressed people, regardless of the vaccine they have received, and to people over 60 who received an inactivated virus vaccine, such as the Chinese Sinovac or Sinopharm.

“These people need an additional dose to protect themselves from serious illness and the risk of dying from COVID-19, and their vaccination cannot be considered complete until they have received their third injection,” Barbosa said.

“There is not yet enough evidence to recommend booster vaccines for other groups that are fully immunized, especially when vaccine availability is limited and many in our region have not yet received their first injection,” he added.

So far, 46% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated against covid-19, according to PAHO.

However, 19 countries have vaccination coverage of less than 40%. Among them, Haiti, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Guatemala are below 20%. (I)