As climate change impacts ecosystems and as people come into closer contact with animals via urbanization and deforestation, the potential for spillover is increasing.
The health sector plays a critical role in managing this risk, but it can’t do it alone.
We have a list of emerging pathogens 🦠 that have the potential for public health risk ⚠️, and almost all of those are either zoonotic, meaning that they can transmit from animals to people, or common to humans and animals.
Whether it’s COVID-19, Ebola, chikungunya, yellow fever, avian influenza, or Zika, we’ve seen that diseases 🦠 that spill from animals to people can have severe impacts.
COVID-19 🦠 has been unique in its scale and impact, but it’s not the first emerging disease to cause ripple effects throughout the world.
And just as we work together 🤝 to control this pandemic 🦠, we must consider the ways in which we can collaborate to avoid future pandemics.
Whether it’s getting vaccines to our region 🌎 or tracking the spread of variants 🦠, controlling this pandemic rests on the work and support of partners across our region and indeed the world.
We have vaccines 💉 from Sinovac and AstraZeneca available this year and will have vaccines from the three producers in 2022.
I am pleased to announce that PAHO has already closed agreements with 3️⃣ EUL authorized producers: Sinovac, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca.
We are now in conversation with our member states that want to use the alternative of direct purchase through the Revolving Fund.
We must focus our attention to close this gap as quickly as possible.
In just the past week, 875,000 vaccine doses arrived 📦 in countries across Latin America and the Caribbean 🌎, but we know these aren’t enough to protect everyone.
As 7️⃣ countries and territories in the Americas have vaccinated more than 70% of their populations, just as many have yet to vaccinate 20% of their populations 👩🏽🦱🧓🏾👨🏻🦱👩🏿🧔🏿👩🏼🦳
Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Haiti have yet to reach even 10% coverage.
