On the eve of the celebration of the Vaccination Week in the Americas from April 23 to 30, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) summoned this Wednesday to the countries to integrate their vaccination efforts against the COVID-19 in their routine immunization systems.
Carissa Etienne recalled that during the launch of the coronavirus vaccines, countries established emergency systems, so “now, we can take advantage of this infrastructure and merge it with our routine immunization systems so that make it more convenient and affordable for families to catch up on all their immunizations at once”.
As an example, he explained that PAHO’s Revolving Fund has delivered some 15 million doses of influenza vaccine to nine countries in the region that continue to strengthen their vaccination efforts.
After announcing that 14 countries in the region have already reached the WHO goal of vaccinating 70% of their population before the deadline of June 30 and that eight more achieved 60% coverage, the director of the Organization highlighted that in some parts of the continent immunization has slowed down or stagnated.
“In the Caribbean, less than 30% of the population completed their first dose in Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia. And in Latin America, Guatemala, Guyana and Paraguay have not yet reached half of their population. We now have enough vaccine supplies to meet demand throughout our region.”
