America reports 25% of deaths from covid in the world this week

International Writing, Apr 30 (EFE) .- Hospitals in Latin America are fighting against a new collapse due to covid-19, while the virus continues to plague the continent, where this week one in four deaths from the disease were registered in the world.
In total, in the last week 1.4 million new cases of covid-19 were reached in America and 36,000 people lost their lives due to the disease, amid an alarming wave of infections in the south of the continent.
“Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay are in new transmission peaks, with a dramatic increase in infections, and their health services are saturated,” the director of Sanitary Emergencies of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned this Friday. , Ciro Ugarte.
At the same time, “in Colombia infections could soon reach the record levels of January, and ICUs and hospitals are reaching the limit in cities such as Bogotá or Medellín,” added the expert.
AMERICA: 60 MILLION INFECTED AND 1.5 MILLION DEAD
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that global cases of covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic today exceeded 150 million people and the death toll rose to 3.1 million.
Despite decreases in daily infections in Europe and America, these continue to be the continents most affected by the pandemic.
America reports more than 61 million cases while in Europe the number of infections rises to 51 million.
In terms of deaths, the American continent registers 1.5 million deaths and Europe, 1.07 million.
Narrowing down the numbers further, Latin America has 28.5 million infections and suffers more than 910,000 deaths from the pandemic.
According to the Johns Hopkins University registry, the United States remains the worst affected nation in the world (32.2 million cases and more than 575,000 deaths). It is followed by India, with 18.7 million positives and more than 208,000 deaths, and Brazil, which has 14.6 million cases and 403,000 deaths.
In Latin America, after Brazil, the nations with the most infections are Argentina (2.9 million), Colombia (2.8 million) and Mexico (2.3 million).
SANITARY COLLAPSE
“One out of every four deaths from covid-19 in the world last week took place here, in the Americas,” PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in her weekly balance.
Latin America has registered some 30 million cases of covid in the pandemic and more than 900,000 deaths from the disease, with Brazil as the country in the region most affected.
PAHO warned in its weekly balance that cases are increasing in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in Colombia and Central America.
In Colombia, April ends as the worst month of the covid-19 pandemic, with 10,000 deaths, daily death records in recent weeks and intensive care units (ICUs) full of seriously ill patients due to the third peak of the disease.
“Hospitalizations are at their highest point in Costa Rica (…) in Guatemala they have also reached their maximum capacity and in Colombia the beds in intensive care units are running out in large cities such as Bogotá and Medellín”, Etienne said.
In the Caribbean, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and The Bahamas report increasing infections. “Anguilla reported more than 60% of its total cases in just the last seven days, and weekly cases doubled in Puerto Rico during the same period,” he explained.
VACCINATION AND INEQUALITY
Therefore, “Latin America and the Caribbean urgently need more vaccines against covid through mechanisms such as Covax and donations,” warned Ugarte.
According to the expert, hospitalizations have increased especially with younger patients, who currently have less access to vaccines and are exposed more often.
WHO data indicate that some 350 million doses of vaccines have been administered so far in America, but 71% (243 million) correspond to the United States.
The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have received almost 7 million doses in the first round of allocation through Covax, the global coalition to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines.
More doses acquired through this mechanism are expected to arrive in May and June.
DELAYS IN OTHER IMMUNIZATIONS
PAHO has warned that, as the region tries to tackle COVID, routine immunization against other vaccine-preventable diseases has been delayed.
According to the agency, last year almost 500,000 children could not be vaccinated against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, and more than 300,000 did not receive vaccines against measles.
Nearly 100 million people are expected to have been vaccinated against diseases such as measles, influenza, and human papillomavirus under the umbrella of this year’s Vaccination Week of the Americas, held April 24-30.

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