BRAZIL (Reuters) – More than a million people have died from COVID-19 in North and South America, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
In the last week alone, 2 million more cases were reported in the Americas, with the United States the main driver of the outbreak, the WHO regional branch said. Globally, there have been more than 100 million cases and 2.1 million deaths with 44 million cases in North and South America, according to a Reuters account.
Across North America, there is growing pressure on hospital capacity, and in some U.S. states, nearly 80 percent of ICU beds are used to treat patients with COVID-19, said Carissa Etienne, head of PAHO, in a virtual briefing.
There are similar rates in many states in Mexico, where the number of cases triples in some regions, he warned.
The hospital situation in Brazil is especially worrying, with three-quarters of ICU beds occupied in many Brazilian states, he said.
In Manaus, many patients expect hospital beds to fall under the strain of a second wave of coronavirus infections complicated by a new variant of the virus detected there.
Variants that have appeared in or outside the region have been detected in 14 countries in North and South America, PAHO said.
Only a few cases of British and South African mutations have been found, mainly in travelers, and they do not appear to have spread to the region, according to PAHO, but the Amazonian variant that emerged in the Brazilian city of Manaus does appear. a high transmission rate.
PAHO expects the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines made available to the poorest countries through the UN-led COVAX facility to begin in March, with about 164 million doses.
The COVAX facility is expected to deploy 2 billion doses worldwide.
Anthony Boadle Reports; Edited by Lisa Shumaker