City of Panama.– The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) applauded this Thursday the “strong network” of vaccine distribution in America, used during the covid-19 pandemic to transport immunization, and stressed that other respiratory diseases are being monitored in the region. .
“In the region of the Americas, historically, there is a strong network to distribute vaccines and now, in addition, there is the Covax mechanism, which is working on these aspects,” the epidemiologist of the PAHO regional influenza team, Ángel Rodríguez, told Efe. , within the framework of a meeting of the regional organization in Panama.
In America, until last Wednesday, 1,751,161,141 doses of vaccines against covid-19 were administered and 684,222,066 people have the complete vaccination schedule, according to official data.
“The most effective measure” to combat the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus “is vaccination”, an issue that “has been noted” in the impact of new variants of the virus, such as the contagious omicron.
Despite the fact that ómicron “is more contagious, there is significant vaccination coverage, with two doses, complete and with reinforcement, which has made it possible to reduce the severity of cases with risk factors,” added the PAHO official.
Rodríguez pointed out that the regional body is monitoring three diseases, “influenza, which has pandemic and epidemic potential, and the respiratory virus, which has seasonality and epidemic outbreaks, and the coronavirus, which has unleashed this pandemic and we will see how it behaves” .
This Thursday, a PAHO regional consultation was held in Panama City with 15 Latin American countries to analyze the impact of covid-19 and the integration in the surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses.
Covid-19 infections have been declining throughout the American continent except in the Caribbean, where deaths from this disease also increased.
For March 16, PAHO said that the Americas registered 901,000 new infections, 19% less than the previous week, but in the Caribbean and the Atlantic islands they increased by 56.6%.
In addition, there were 15,523 deaths throughout the continent, a drop of 18.4% compared to last week, but in the Caribbean they increased by 6.9%.
In total, America has detected 149 million cases and 2.6 million deaths since the covid-19 pandemic began two years ago. EFE
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