Guatemala exceeds 12 thousand deaths from covid-19 and the most important hospitals and those equipped to care for patients infected by this virus are collapsed and have no supplies. The disease continues to gain ground, which worries the country’s medical and scientific community, which has asked President Alejandro Giammattei and Congress for more drastic measures to mitigate the excessive increase in positive cases.
Due to this situation, Giammattei announced in a presidential message last Thursday that, although it is impossible to present a solution with which all sectors of the country agree, he asked Congress to approve a State of Calamity as a mitigation measure against infections. , because he wants all social gatherings to be suspended
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He also announced that mobility limitations will allow them to start implementing a strategy with brigades to detect infections and inject vaccines on a massive scale in sectors with high population density.
“We will start with well-identified multidisciplinary brigades made up of medical and security personnel who will be previously announced to carry out massive diagnostic tests, those who give a positive result will receive the free outpatient treatment kit and those who test negative and are over 18 years old will be vaccinated there. themselves if they so wish ”, affirmed the president.
Rubén Tellez, Army spokesman, explained that the armed forces will support this process and from this Friday, September 3, they will begin in Villa Canales, Villa Nueva, Petapa and Bethania from 6:00 p.m. Although experts and doctors have reiterated that the entire population of the country must have access to tests and vaccines against covid-19, these places are concentrated in the department of Guatemala.
“What is sought is to bring the vaccine to homes now that people will be restricted in their mobility, remember that they start tomorrow Saturday from 8 at night and at that time the mobile brigades will be looking for people in their home, ”Tellez told the Government Channel.
Vaccination centers
An analysis presented by the Covid-19 Data Laboratory highlights that, the vaccination centers are concentrated in places where people from the middle and upper middle class frequent, so they emphasize that the vaccines should be extended to the entire country and the process it must be more equitable.
In addition, they highlighted that more than half of the population with university studies is already vaccinated, but the gap is marked in the population group with primary education or less that only 10 percent have been immunized.
In the opinion of Alicia Chang Cojulun, vice president of the Guatemalan Association of Infectious Diseases (AGEI), this measure is positive because there will be more scope to test and inject vaccines in the places that the authorities visit.
“I hope that it will have a significant impact on the transmission of the disease, that despite the fact that we were unable to close the country, that through these brigades the cases can be better tracked to stop the infections,” the infectologist stressed.
But he reiterated that they must reach communities far from the capital, they should not stay in the municipal capitals because tests and vaccines must be accessible to people who cannot reach the vaccination and covid testing centers on their own. -19.
“We know that in zone 18 or Mixco they are zones where there is a very high population density, so in those zones they are the ones that should have greater emphasis, but also in villages and hamlets because they face many barriers and not only physical, but also linguistic. so the information cannot be communicated well to them ”, he indicated.
Vaccination disparities
Dialogues made a report on Disparities in the vaccination process against covid-19, which makes the record imprecise and uneven. Sofía Montenegro, a social researcher for the organization, stressed that another strategy must be used to reach more people and vaccinate them, because they recently updated the disparities chart and established that there is a rather noticeable difference in the rate of vaccination.
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“The municipality of Guatemala is reaching 76 percent of the population vaccinated with at least one dose, but at the same time we have other municipalities where they have not even reached 10 percent of the population. This reflects that in part the vaccines have been concentrated in vaccination centers and it does not respond to a logic of population density and has not responded to the demand and supply that has been had as commercial centers, ”explained Montenegro.
He welcomes the implementation of the brigades to resolve disparities, but it should be taken into account that in recent weeks they have noticed that the number of people with the second dose applied exceeds those who inject the first dose, which could indicate that there is a slowdown because they are completing their vaccination schedule, but new people are not being recruited to give the first dose.
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