🔸 And finally, this is also the time for countries to invest in their vaccination programs.

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But we remind countries 🌎 that the best way to protect the wellbeing of our children is to safely reopen schools.

Childhood vaccination is not a prerequisite for safe school reopening.

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Healthy children and adolescents should be the last to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses 🩹 since they’re at lowest risk for severe disease.

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It is at this moment that vaccine doses should be made available to healthy adults, as well as adolescents and children 🧑🏾👩🏻aged 12 or older who may be living with pre-existing medical conditions, so we can further reduce transmission rates.

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As coverage in these priority groups grows, we will see reductions in the national hospitalization 🏥 and mortality rates.

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Once countries have secured high coverage with primary series and booster doses 🩹 among these highest priority groups, PAHO recommends that they retool the vaccine rollout plans to focus on the next highest risk groups.

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If they don’t, they will continue to experience outbreaks, their hospitals 🏥 will remain overstretched, limiting care for other conditions, and too many people will continue to die from this virus 🦠

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🔸 We urge countries to prioritize high-risk groups.

Countries should refocus their efforts in protecting health workers, immunocompromised individuals, and the elderly, first.

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🔸 That starts with collecting and reporting stratified vaccine data 📊

We urge countries to re-analyze their vaccination data to better understand their gaps – whether that’s in geography, age, sex or among key priority groups.

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So, countries will be able to offer vaccine doses to those who remain unprotected.

As these doses arrive, we urge countries to make the necessary preparations to make the most of these vaccines 🩹

@DirOPSPAHO #COVID19