Latin America is trying to resist the new wave of the coronavirus pandemic, already causing some 600,000 deaths in the region, pending the COVAX Mechanism vaccines, the supply of which has just been confirmed to more than 30 land on the continent and possibly start. in mid-September this month.
“The start of vaccine delivery through COVAX is a hopeful step in the fight against this virus,” said Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), confirming the notification to 36 countries and US territories. the estimated number of AstraZeneca doses they could receive through this mechanism from the second half of February and during the second quarter of the year.
COVAX is a platform coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO / PAHO) to provide equitable access to vaccines against covid-19, with approximately 190 countries of the world joining to have guaranteed initial doses covering at least 3% of the the population in the early stages, eventually reaching 20%, enough to protect those most at risk.
The expected doses of COVAX
The GAVI Vaccine Alliance confirmed last week that some 280 million doses of anticovid vaccines will arrive in Latin America this year through the COVAX program.
Within this mechanism, the region registers nearly 30 countries or territories with the capacity to purchase vaccines and 10 are eligible to receive them as donations: Bolivia, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The PAHO Revolving Fund had estimated in recent months that to vaccinate 20% of the Hispanic and Caribbean population would require 273 million doses (with a schedule of two applications of $ 10.55 each), which is an estimated cost of $ 2.714.2 million.
According to PAHO’s announcement, the vaccine that will initially be delivered is that of UK-based AstraZeneca, which is still being analyzed by the WHO to get approval for emergency use, which could take place in the coming days.
“At COVAX, we now have a better idea of the timing for the emergency use approval of the key products in its portfolio, including the main AstraZeneca (the vaccine), which we hope will be available from February”, WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward said today.
This estimates that approximately 35.3 million doses will reach America in this first phase.
The number of vaccines was reported directly to each country, and in the case of Nicaragua, a country eligible to receive them as a donation, the government reported today that the WHO guaranteed the short-term delivery of 504,000 doses.
PAHO specified that the countries and territories of the continent that have already received the notification of delivery of COVAX vaccines are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador and El Salvador.
Also Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago , Uruguay and Venezuela.
Latin America: 19 million cases and nearly 600,000 deaths
The much-anticipated announcement comes as some Latin American countries, which have direct agreements with manufacturing laboratories, are making progress on vaccination, in a region that remains one of the most pandemic-shaken.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported this Monday that the total number of cases is 102.3 million and the number of deaths is 2.2 million.
America, with 45.6 million cases and one million deaths, and Europe, with 34.2 million and 743,000 deaths, are the regions most affected by the coronavirus in the world.
Meanwhile, the countries with the highest number of infections according to data are still the United States (26.2 million cases), India (10.7 million), Brazil (9.2 million), the United Kingdom (3.84 million) and Russia (3.82 million). from Johns Hopkins University.
Meanwhile, in Latin America, after Brazil, the countries with the most infections are Colombia (2 million), Argentina (1.9 million) and Mexico (1.8 million).
With this, the continent adds more than 45.6 million cases and one million deaths. And of this figure, Latin America reports about 19 million infections and nearly 600,000 deaths.
January, a month of terrible records
Pending vaccines, the pandemic does not trigger a truce on the continent and countries are starting to score shocking rates of infections and deaths in this second month of 2021.
In the United States, where more than 442,000 deaths from covid-19 have occurred, the disease left a record 90,000 deaths in January, despite the number of cases having fallen somewhat recently.
January was also the month of highest coronavirus deaths in Mexico, with at least 32,729 deaths from Covid-19, despite President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s insistence that the pandemic was ‘tamed’.
With an average of nearly 1,056 deaths per day, January surpasses 19,867 deaths in December, 18,919 in July, and 17,839 in June, which were considered the worst months of the pandemic in Mexico, which is now the third country with the highest number deaths in the world (more than 158,000), after the United States (442,000) and Brazil (more than 224,500).
Cuba also reported 906 new positive covid-19 diagnoses on Monday amid the worst wave of coronavirus in the past ten months, as health authorities predict the infection curve will continue to rise in February.