March 13, 2023
The consequences in the country are not only related to COVID-19, since the diagnosis and prevention of other diseases have also received a negative impact since 2020.
By Carmen Valle
On March 13, 2023, three years have passed since the confirmation of the first case of coronavirus in Guatemala. From then on, according to the board of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance (MSPAS), there were 1,238,049 accumulated infections and 20,182 deaths from the virus. However, the consequences spread to other areas and vaccine-preventable vaccination was reduced in children.
Every year until 2019, the MSPAS immunized at least 85% of children under five years of age against polio, rubella, measles, whooping cough, among other diseases. These basic schemes led several of them to be considered eradicated in the country, although vigilance is maintained to prevent new outbreaks from imported cases.
Even so, the alert was activated again from 2020, with the arrival of the pandemic. Since then, vaccination coverage against them has been reduced and, at the discretion of the pediatric infectologist, Mario Melgarthis is a worrying phenomenon because more and more children are seen in hospitals with conditions that could be prevented with biologicals, such as pneumococcal disease or severe cases of influenza.
“It can extend to more alarming diseases, such as measles. After the coronavirus, it is the most transmissible worldwide and if children are not immunized, there is a risk of an outbreak, especially when they go back to school,” adds the doctor. In addition, this is the condition with the most attention because some cases have been detected in Latin America and therefore its importation into Guatemala is not ruled out.
According to the MSPAS, between 2015 and 2019 the average target for the application of regimens against measles and rubella was exceeded. In 2020 coverage dropped to 75% of children; in 2021, it was at 81%; in 2022, up to epidemiological week 34 (the last four-month period of the year), it reached 46%.
The same happened with polio, because in 2020 it reached 79% of children. In 2021, 73% and in the last four-month period of 2022, 46%. The pentavalent vaccine, for its part, reached 80% in 2020, 73% in 2021 and 46.2% in 2022.
Not only vaccination was reduced, but also the notification of suspected cases of any of these diseases. This, according to Melgar, is not important because they want to have an outbreak in Guatemala, but because reporting indicates that doctors know how to recognize when a symptom is similar to that of the disease.
By 2022, however, the MSPAS reported to seven health areas without notification of suspected cases. Another seven did not reach the expected average number of notifications or were close to that number.
to say of the Guatemalan Association of Infectious Diseases (AGEI), some of the reasons why immunization figures were able to drop were the displacement of health workers to coronavirus care areas, and the fear on the part of the population of being infected when going to hospitals.
“We must also mention the enormous focus given to the coronavirus during these three years. The anticovid vaccine was promoted in one way or another, but the same effort was not made in the rest of the diseases ”, concludes Melgar.
Boris Barrios, MSPAS spokesman, acknowledges the decline in these numbers, but also insists on the low influx of people in health centers in search of immunopreventable schemes. Asked if there are any plans to increase the numbers, she mentioned visits by vaccinators to homes to inject children and mobile immunization posts.
While vaccine-preventable vaccination was reduced, that of COVID-19 registered 60 out of 100 people with the first dose and only 47 with two. The goal was to have 70% with a complete scheme, but only 24 municipalities out of 340 achieved it.
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