The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported that in the Americas, one in four people have not been vaccinated against covid-19, and infections and deaths continue to increase in the region.
63 percent of the inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean have been vaccinated against covid-19 but it is still the most unequal region in the world in terms of access to vaccines, said the director of PAHO, Carissa Etienne, during a virtual press conference.
Although 14 countries and territories have fully immunized 70 percent of their population, many others have not yet managed to protect 40 percent of their population.
In low- and middle-income countries “more than 54 percent of people have yet to receive a single covid-19 vaccineEtienne stated.
Meanwhile infections and deaths from covid-19 continue to rise. Last week more than 7 million new cases were registered and more than 34,000 virus-related deaths.
Deaths increased for the fourth consecutive week in all subregions, with an increase of almost 33 percent compared to the previous seven days.
In the Caribbean, deaths have more than doubled in Cuba, the Bahamas, and Antigua and Barbuda. On other islands, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, the virus is spreading rapidly among the young and the unvaccinated, and in South America, Chile and Brazil have recorded record numbers of daily cases.
Subvariantes de ómicron
Sylvain Alighieri, responsible for monitoring the pandemic at PAHO, affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO), caution is recommended when calibrating the severity of the omicron variant because there is still no definitive scientific conclusion.
And even if it caused milder disease than other variants, “we need to consider it and control the transmission of a pathogen … because it will still cause multiple cases, many of which can degenerate into severe disease,” he explained.
Virus evolution “is a very dynamic process,” he said, and to date four different sub-lineages have been described for omicron called BA.1 BA.1.1 BA.2 and BA.3.
Worldwide BA.1 is the predominant and in the samples sequenced in January in the Americas BA.1 and BA.1.1 have been identified in 95 percent of those from North America and 87 percent of those from South America and the Caribbean.
In the Americas, there is evidence of the presence of BA.2 in Mexico and Argentina, in addition to sporadic cases in the United States.
The propagation of the omicron sub-variants is something “expected” in the coming days and weeks, but “we must remember that it is the same variant and at the moment there is no reason for further concern“because “there is no strong evidence demonstrating any change in clinical or epidemiological behavior in any of the four subtypes,” Alighieri added.
Data collection
PAHO asks countries to collect data on vaccination by age, sex and risk group and communicate it to them because it finds worrying gaps in those who already transmit them. For example, in the United States and Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory, vaccination among the elderly is lower than among the younger, despite the fact that they are at less risk of getting sick.
This year an increase in the supply of vaccines is expected thanks to donations from the United States, Spain, Canada, Germany, France and other countries, totaling some 26 million doses.
PAHO’s Revolving Fund, which has delivered almost 100 million doses so far, expects to obtain another 200 million doses this year.
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