An epidemiologist based at an international health organisation is cautioning that there can be no return to normalcy unless vaccination rates for COVID-19 increase significantly.
It has come from Dr Franka des Vignes, the Subregional Advisor, Disease Surveillance and Epidemiology, PAHO/WHO Office of the Subregional Programme Coordination, Caribbean, who has lamented the low level of vaccination across the region.
Dr des Vignes pointed out that the pandemic had not yet become endemic as there was no stable and sustained transmission of the virus at a stable level.
She explained that transmission of Sars Cov 2 around the world was “anything but stable” at this time.
“Because of the lack of that stable and sustained transmission where we know precisely a range in terms of the number of new cases we can expect from one week to the next, that is why we are still in the pandemic,” she said.
Dr des Vignes said even though the number of new weekly cases had declined since January 2022 along with the number of new weekly deaths, COVID-19 still posed a serious threat.
She said vaccines still remained the best chance for a return to normalcy, especially in the event that a new strain of the virus was to emerge.
However, Dr des Vignes said the low rate of vaccination in the region was worrying.
“Vaccination is of course critical to ensure that a large proportion of the Caribbean population is protected but the reality is that the proportion of individuals who’ve been vaccinated vary from one country to another. As many of you know, schools are back in, children are back at school. The vaccine for children has been available and I know uptake has been extremely low which is unfortunate and so there is some return to normalcy already with children back in school, some offices opening up.
“That’s all good and well but my concern is and from an epidemiological perspective, what if we have another variant? I know that we all want things to get back to normal, I know many of the countries are having carnivals and parties and fetes and people want to get back to normal and that’s understood. But, we still have to push for increased vaccination against COVID-19,” Dr des Vignes insisted.
“The vaccination of our children for vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, it is going to be very important for us to continue to stress how important it is to vaccinate the children in our region to continue to protect them from these diseases.” (RB)
