Our technical and procurement teams have been working closely with these countries to help them prepare health workers 👩🏿⚕️👨🏾⚕️ and health systems so they can absorb and administer these vaccines 💉
Over the next few months 🗓, PAHO will work closely with COVAX to deliver tens of millions of doses 📦 to our region – many of which are allocated for countries with low ⬇️ vaccine coverage – like Jamaica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.
PAHO is doing everything it can to ➡️ accelerate vaccinations in our region.
Vaccine donations 📦 remain the fastest way to support countries in our region 🌎
At that summit, I told participants that overcoming this pandemic rests on having the tools to prevent, detect and treat COVID-19 🦠, and that we must expand global vaccine production by leveraging the expertise and capacity of regions like our own 🌎
Most countries 🌎 continue to have limited access to vaccines, so we are encouraged by announcements made at last week’s Global COVID-19 Summit, where world leaders pledged an additional 850 million COVID vaccine doses 💉
While Canada, Chile, Uruguay, and Puerto Rico have fully vaccinated over 70% of their populations, ten countries and territories in our region have yet to reach 20% of their populations.
And in Haiti, fewer than 1% of people have been protected 🩹 so far
Vaccines 💉 have the power to save lives and change the course of the pandemic, so today I want to offer an update on immunization efforts in the Americas 🌎
Most countries in Central and South America – except Belize – are continuing to see infections drop ⬇️, although COVID deaths are up in Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.
And in Bermuda, like in many other countries and territories, burnout among health care workers remains a concern as hospitals are overburdened with COVID 🦠 patients
