COVID-19 is growing dangerously in Brazil, warns the WHO branch in America

BRAZIL (Reuters) – Coronavirus is growing “dangerously” across Brazil, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Americas Carissa Etienne warned on Tuesday, urging all Brazilians to adopt preventive measures to stop the spread.

“Unfortunately, Brazil’s dire situation also affects neighboring countries,” Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said in a briefing.

COVID-19 cases have increased in the Bolivarian and Amazon states of Venezuela and in the border regions of Peru and Bolivia, he said.

The virus variant first discovered in Brazil known as P1, which experts say is more contagious than the original coronavirus strain, has now been detected in 15 countries in the Americas and has become one of the main reasons of concern, said Sylvain Aldighieri, PAHO’s incident manager.

In the southern cone, COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, according to PAHO.

In Paraguay, most beds in the intensive care unit (ICU) are occupied and the health system is shrinking under pressure. Uruguay has reported more than 1,000 cases a day several times in recent weeks, an alarming number given the size of the country.

In Central America, cases have decreased in Panama, but the increase in hospitalizations in Guatemala is reducing the capacity of the ICU bed.

The WHO-led COVAX facility and the Gavi coalition to provide equitable access to vaccines have so far delivered 2,161,800 doses to the region, including more than a million doses in Brazil last weekend.

PAHO expects more than 100,000 doses of vaccine to be delivered to El Salvador, Belize and Suriname this week, and an additional 1.2 million doses have already been purchased.

“The vaccines are coming in, but there are still several months left for most people in our region,” Etienne said.

According to a Reuters account, Latin America and the Caribbean have so far reported some 23.7 million cases of coronavirus and 746,000 related deaths, almost double the figure for Asia and Africa combined.

Brazil alone has had more than 295,000 deaths from COVID-19 and more than 12 million cases of the virus.