PAHO alerts of “high risk” of disease outbreaks due to lack of routine vaccination

The region of the Americas is at “high risk” for outbreaks of preventable diseases due to the lack of routine vaccination due to the pandemic of Covid-19, alerted on Wednesday the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

The American continent became a global leader in the control of smallpox, polio, rubella, measles and tetanus thanks to the PAHO Expanded Program on Immunization, created in 1977.

But “significant decreases” in immunization coverage rates since the coronavirus emergency, coupled with a relaxation or cessation of public health measures to slow the spread of the virus. Covid-19, “will predictably result” in an increase in many of these diseases, according to experts from the OPS.

“Unless we improve our routine immunization, the region is at high risk of new and re-emerging outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, “Carissa Etienne, director of the OPS.

“The region faces an imminent crisis around the routine vaccination and continued attention must be given as a priority to maintaining and strengthening immunization and other essential health programs, “he added.

Etienne recognized the additional pressure posed by the crisis of the Covid-19 in health systems, but he urged the countries of the region to revitalize their national vaccination programs to avoid going back on the achievements made.

The OPS He insisted that the pandemic is not over.

During the last week, peaks of cases were reported in areas of Colombia and Bolivia and an upward trend in the Southern Cone after relaxation of prevention measures. Contagions also increased in Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, as well as in the Cayman Islands and Dominica.

“The current moment is still worrying. infections are increasing in some countries and the rate of vaccination It’s not the one we’d like yet, “Etienne said.

Although 48% of the people in Latin America and the Caribbean have already been fully immunized against Covid-19, coverage is still much lower in some countries.

On Jamaica, Saint vincent and the Grenadines and Guatemala less than one in five people is immunized. On Nicaragua, coverage is still in the single digits and in Haiti less than 1% of people have completed the vaccination schedule, warned the OPS.

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