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Friday, February 28, 2025

Region must improve vaccination rates to stop COVID-19 spread – PAHO

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1101 days ago
20220223

■ Low vac­ci­na­tion rates in the Caribbean must be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed to stop the spread of COVID-19, says PA­HO Di­rec­tor, as 10 out of 13 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the Amer­i­c­as yet to reach 40% cov­er­age are in the Caribbean… but the tide can still be turned with tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions ■

 

Wash­ing­ton D.C. (PA­HO) — Low vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age in many coun­tries of the Caribbean must be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed to stop the spread of COVID-19 and pro­tect the most vul­ner­a­ble, warned PA­HO Di­rec­tor, Caris­sa F. Eti­enne, with health care work­ers and the el­der­ly re­main­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly at risk.

Out of the 13 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the Amer­i­c­as that have not yet reached WHO’s 2021 goal of 40% vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age, 10 are in the Caribbean, she said at a me­dia brief­ing to­day.

Vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy, a lack of vac­ci­na­tion cen­ters in re­mote ar­eas, in­suf­fi­cient staff num­bers, and lim­it­ed cold-chain in­fra­struc­ture re­main huge bar­ri­ers to vac­ci­na­tion in many is­lands, but we now have the tools “to turn the tide on vac­ci­na­tions in the Caribbean.”

With 700 mil­lion peo­ple now vac­ci­nat­ed in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, there are “re­al-word da­ta to show that vac­cines are safe and ef­fec­tive against COVID-19,” the PA­HO Di­rec­tor said. But in­ter­ven­tions must now be tai­lored to the needs of those that re­main vul­ner­a­ble in each coun­try.

In some coun­tries, this means en­sur­ing that health care work­ers are pro­vid­ed with the in­for­ma­tion they need to get vac­ci­nat­ed, in­clud­ing on po­ten­tial side ef­fects and how long the ben­e­fits of the vac­cine last.

“These are le­git­i­mate ques­tions that must be ac­knowl­edged and ad­dressed so that we can bet­ter pro­tect our health care work­ers and every­one else,” Dr. Eti­enne said.

In oth­er coun­tries, PA­HO is work­ing with gov­ern­ments to en­sure that vac­ci­na­tion cen­ters are clos­er to the peo­ple who need them the most, and that hours of op­er­a­tion are con­ve­nient for those that work.

The Di­rec­tor al­so urged coun­tries to work with trust­ed voic­es and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to cre­ate spaces for di­a­logue to ad­dress con­cerns around vac­ci­na­tion.

A re­cent sur­vey by PA­HO and UNICEF, sup­port­ed by US­AID, showed that 51% of vac­cine hes­i­tant peo­ple in the East­ern Caribbean were open to chang­ing their minds af­ter see­ing more sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical ev­i­dence to sup­port vac­ci­na­tion.

“Di­a­logue, trust and out­reach are the tools we must re­ly on to get more vac­cines in­to arms and ul­ti­mate­ly save lives,” the Di­rec­tor said.

Dr. Eti­enne al­so made a spe­cial ap­peal - “As a doc­tor from the Caribbean who has ded­i­cat­ed her life to pub­lic health, the best de­ci­sion you can make for your health right now is to get a vac­cine against COVID,” she said.

“The pan­dem­ic is not over, and a new vari­ant can emerge at any point.”

“We have the pow­er as a com­mu­ni­ty to over­come these bar­ri­ers and re­duce the toll of this virus on our peo­ple.”

Turn­ing to the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion in the re­gion, new cas­es de­clined by 28% from the pre­vi­ous week, to 2.2 mil­lion. Deaths al­so fell for the first time since the be­gin­ning of the Omi­cron wave to 29,000 – a 9% drop.

Over­all cas­es dropped by a third across North Amer­i­ca, and while deaths de­clined in the Unit­ed States, the rates re­main among the high­est seen dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

With the ex­cep­tion of Hon­duras, deaths al­so dropped by 17% in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca though Nicaragua ex­pe­ri­enced a surge in new in­fec­tions.

In South Amer­i­ca, deaths de­creased by 13%, with spikes re­main­ing in some ar­eas, in­clud­ing Chile.

In the Caribbean, new in­fec­tions fell by 44%, yet eight coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries re­port­ed an in­crease in deaths.

COVID-19HealthCaribbeanPAHOLatin America


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