PAHO chief: Step up COVID fight

Pan American Health Organization Director Dr Carissa  Etienne has called on the region to ramp up public health measures to prevent a spike in COVID-19 cases as she warned that COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to the Americas will be delayed.

“I cannot stress this enough – for most countries, vaccines are not going to stop this wave of the pandemic,” Etienne said Wednesday during her weekly media briefing.

“There are simply not enough of them available to protect everyone in the countries at greatest risk.”

“Therefore, we need to stop transmission by any means possible with the tools we have at hand. This will require comprehensive strategies to both accelerate the rollout of vaccines and control the virus using proven public health measures,” she added, referring to wearing masks, social distancing, and hand hygiene.

Since March, more than three million doses of COVAX-procured vaccines have been delivered to 28 countries under PAHO revolving fund.

The revolving fund negotiates, purchases, and arranges logistics for the shipment of vaccines to the 36 countries that participate in COVAX.

So far in the Americas, more than 247 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, including through deals countries made individually with vaccine producers.

But in the past few weeks, Etienne said, constraints on producers of COVAX vaccines have slowed deliveries, and supplies are not expected to normalise for a few more weeks.

“In the meantime, we cannot rely on vaccines to control transmission,” she said.

“PAHO is committed to working with member states to secure more vaccine doses for our region as soon as they are available to complement what countries have already purchased via bilateral deals and through the COVAX Facility,” she said.

Etienne cautioned that the pandemic continues to surge across the Americas.

In the past week, more than 1.3 million people were infected with the virus and nearly 36,000 people died from the disease.

Etienne said: “When the pandemic began, 57 million cases had been reported in the Americas, with more than 1.3 million deaths.

“We are not acting like a region in the midst of a worsening outbreak.

“Despite ongoing transmission in many places, restrictions have relaxed. Crowds are back, and people are gathering indoors and taking public transportation, often without masks.”

She said new, highly transmissible variants are also fuelling acceleration.

Describing South America as the continuing “epicentre,” Etienne reported that new COVID-19 cases are sharply increasing in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and some areas of Bolivia.

Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile are experiencing continuing increases in infections.

New variants in the Guianas have driven a rise in cases in Guyana and French Guyana.

New infections are increasing in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and smaller Caribbean islands such as Curacao, Bermuda, and Aruba. Cases also continue to increase in Canada.

Etienne sought to assure that provided reassurance about the safety of the four vaccines authorised by WHO – the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, two versions of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and the Janssen vaccine.

Reports of rare blood clots are under review by regulatory agencies, which are expected to make recommendations soon, she said. (BT/PAHO)