Despite the efforts, 75% of the Latin American population still does not have a complete vaccination schedule for covid-19, although the need for a third dose is already being discussed.
This and other news are the keys to vaccination this week:
1. 75% OF LATIN AMERICAN PEOPLE WITHOUT COMPLETE SCHEME
The World Health Organization (WHO) records 218,900,000 covid-19 infections globally, with 4.5 million deaths.
About 38% of cases (84,400,000 infected) and about 46% of deaths (2.1 million) correspond to America. And of these, more than half of the infections (42.6 million) and deaths (1.43 million) have been recorded in Latin America.
As the continent most affected, as of this Friday, America has administered about 935 million doses of covid-19 vaccines, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) record.
Most have been applied in the US (more than 371 million), followed by Brazil (almost 177 million), Mexico (82.6 million), Canada (52.9 million), Argentina (40.9 million), Colombia (34 , 2 million), Chile (26.9 million), Peru (17.7 million), Ecuador (17.5 million) and Cuba (12.9 million).
Based on these data, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa F. Etienne, laments that 75% of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean is not yet fully vaccinated against covid-19.
“More than a third of the countries in our region have not yet vaccinated 20% of their population (the initial target). And in some places, coverage is much lower,” he warned.
According to PAHO, “vaccination rates remain below 20% in several Caribbean and South American countries, and coverage remains single-digit in Central American nations such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. “.
2. LOW VACCINATION WITH NEW BUDS
PAHO has also warned that while vaccination rates remain low in Latin America and the Caribbean, many countries are experiencing a rapid rise in new infections.
According to the agency, in the Caribbean, Saint Lucia and Puerto Rico are reporting high rates of new infections, while Jamaica is experiencing the highest number of deaths from covid-19 to date.
In fact, in Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged the population not to panic despite the rise in cases, which forced the Executive to extend periods of restricted movement and curfew. night two weeks ago.
Holness stressed the need to remain calm despite the sharp increase in covid-19 infections, which has so far caused more than 68,400 cases and some 1,500 deaths in the island.
“Outbreaks are accelerating in several Central American countries, especially in Costa Rica and Belize,” Etienne said in a weekly report, noting, however, that infections in South America are declining overall.
In all, more than 1.6 million new cases of covid-19 and just under 22,000 deaths were reported on the continent last week.
But in Haiti and Venezuela, the fragility of health systems and political challenges have further delayed immunizations.
3. MODERN BET FOR YOUR THIRD DOSE
The modern American pharmaceutical company delivered the first results of its clinical trials to the European authorities for the evaluation of a third dose of booster against covid-19 with the aim of obtaining its authorization.
Last Tuesday, Moderna also submitted the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), just over two weeks after Pfizer, which then said the booster dose had generated “neutralizing antibodies. significantly higher “against the original covid-19 virus, in addition to the beta and delta variants.
In August, the FDA began recommending the use of a third dose for people with a weakened immune system, such as organ transplant patients, people with HIV, or some cancer patients, who did not go record an adequate immune response to the first two vaccines.
4. CHILDREN, IN VIEW OF VACCINATION
Cuba began this Friday to vaccinate its pediatric population (2 to 18 years) with its own formulas against coronavirus, a step prior to the resumption next week of the 2020-2021 school year virtually.
That’s when more than 70,000 children and teens have been infected on the island with SARS-Cov-2.
In the same vein, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged the maintenance of high vaccination coverage among the population to protect children from covid-19, as they have not yet authorized no vaccine for children under 12 years of age.
Concern is growing among parents in several American countries about the possibility of their children contracting the disease, especially now that face-to-face classes have resumed in countries such as the United States (in some states), Ecuador, and Mexico.
5. INFLAMMATORY SYNDROME, FOR EVALUATION
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is assessing the risk of developing multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) with covid-19 vaccines and will also analyze data on possible venous thromboembolism with the Janssen single-dose preparation.
The EMA Safety Committee (PRAC) is analyzing available information from a case reported by a 17-year-old boy in Denmark, who developed MIS in the days following receiving a vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech (Comirnaty) , although it has “fully recovered” since then.
This syndrome is a serious inflammatory disease that affects many parts of the body and symptoms can include fatigue, persistent high fever, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach, head and chest pain, as well as difficulty breathing, a condition that had previously reported in patients who had developed covid-19.