The number of new cases and deaths from Covid-19 in the Americas has decreased but there are still vulnerable areas such as the Caribbean, reported this Wednesday the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Last week there was 2.2 million new cases of Covid-19 in the region, that is 28% less than in the previous week, said the director of PAHO, Carissa Etienne, at a virtual press conference.
The number of deaths from the disease fell for the first time since the beginning of the wave of the Omicron variant and stood at 29,000 (-9% compared to the previous week), it added.
But the situation is uneven, with 13 countries and territories registering an increase in deaths and missing the goal of the World Health Organization (WHO) to vaccinate 40% of the population.
Although cases fell by a third in North America, new infections increased by 70% in Mexico.
In the United States the number of deaths decreased but remains high. They also fell in general in Central America (-17%), but in Honduras deaths in intensive care continue to rise.
Despite the fact that deaths fell in general in South America by an average of 13%, in Chile the situation is critical in intensive care.
In the Caribbean, home to more than 44 million people, new cases fell by 44%, but in many places deaths are rising.
According to Carissa Etienne, the Caribbean “remains especially vulnerable to Covid-19”. And the contrasts are striking, with 91% of people in the Cayman Islands fully vaccinated and less than 1% of Haitians.
To alleviate the differences, the organization recommends more than ever to be vaccinated.
Almost 700 million people in the Americas have already received the complete vaccination schedule and to reach those who are missing, it recommends reaching the most vulnerable in each country, facilitating people’s access to vaccines and creating open spaces for dialogue.
Soon to sing victory
Meanwhile, more and more countries are reducing the restrictions imposed against Covid-19 in an attempt to return to normality.
When that decision is made, several factors must be taken into account, such as evaluating the risks, monitoring the immunological situation and the capacity of the services, and periodically adjusting the strategies, points out Ciro Ugarte, director of Health Emergencies of the organization.
To assess the situation “it is necessary to have an adequate surveillance and implementation system” because it has been shown during the pandemic “that if we relax the measures when we are at low levels of transmission, generally one or two weeks later, the number of cases increases rapidly. “, Add.
And it can affect anyone, says Jarbas Barbosa, deputy director of PAHO. “Many people have had Covid more than once because the protection decreases over time and also many times the new variants overcome the person’s immune system and produce a new infection.”
In any case, PAHO warns that although the WHO, on which it depends, will one day lift the public health emergency, this does not imply that the pandemic is over.
In reality “there will never be a specific day of completion. It is likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to circulate for the foreseeable future globally (…) like those of seasonal flu,” explained Sylvain Aldighieri, head of incidents for Covid-19 at PAHO.
The “most credible” scenario is that although there may continue to be spikes, “the impact of the pandemic gradually decreases globally over the months and years,” added the expert, specifying that he is referring to “the burden of the severe disease and of deaths” and that this will vary from one country to another depending on whether vaccination is high and uniform in risk groups and on the improvement in patient care with new treatments.