Latin America is emerging region most impacted by the pandemic 

Latin America, with 600,000 COVID deaths, awaits COVAX doses now 

photo_camera AFP/ RODRIGO ARANGUA - Doctors and nurses assist patients infected with COVID-19 at the Hospital Juarez de Mexico.

Latin America is seeking to resist the new wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed some 600,000 people in the region, as it awaits the COVAX vaccines, whose delivery has just been confirmed to more than 30 countries on the continent and could begin in the middle of this month. 

"The start of vaccine delivery through COVAX is an encouraging step in the fight against this virus," said Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), confirming the notification to 36 countries and territories in the Americas of the estimated number of AstraZeneca doses that they could receive from the second half of February and throughout the second quarter of the year through this mechanism. 

COVAX is a platform coordinated by the World Health Organisation (WHO/PAHO) to provide equitable access to covid-19 vaccines, to which some 190 countries have signed up in order to have guaranteed initial doses to cover at least 3% of the population in the early stages, eventually reaching 20%, enough to protect those most at risk. 

Latin America: 19 million cases and almost 600,000 deaths 

The long-awaited announcement comes as some Latin American countries, which have reached direct agreements with manufacturers, are moving ahead with vaccination in a region that remains among the hardest hit by the pandemic. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported on Monday that the global total of cases is 102.3 million and the number of deaths is 2.2 million. 

The Americas, with 45.6 million cases and one million deaths, and Europe, with 34.2 million and 743,000 deaths, are the regions most affected by the coronavirus. 

Meanwhile, the countries with the highest number of infections continue to be the United States (26.2 million cases), India (10.7 million), Brazil (9.2 million), the United Kingdom (3.84 million) and Russia (3.82 million), according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 

In Latin America, after Brazil, the nations with the most infections are Colombia (2 million), Argentina (1.9 million) and Mexico (1.8 million). 

This brings the continent's total number of cases to more than 45.6 million and one million deaths. And of this figure, Latin America reports some 19 million infections and almost 600,000 deaths. 

Latinoamérica, con 600.000 muertes por covid, aguarda ya las dosis de COVAX 

January, a month of disastrous records 

While awaiting vaccines, the pandemic is not letting up on the continent and countries are beginning to record shocking rates of infection and deaths in the second month of 2021. 

In the United States, which has accumulated more than 442,000 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused a record 90,000 deaths in January, although the number of cases has declined somewhat recently. 

January was also the month of highest coronavirus mortality in Mexico, with at least 32,729 deaths from covid-19, despite President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's insistence that the pandemic was "tamed". 

With an average of almost 1,056 deaths per day, January surpasses the 19,867 deaths in December, 18,919 in July and 17,839 in June, which were considered the worst months of the pandemic in Mexico, which is now the country with the third highest number of deaths in the world (more than 158,000), after the United States (442,000) and Brazil (more than 224,500). 

Cuba also reported 906 new covid-19 positive diagnoses on Monday in the midst of the worst coronavirus wave in the last ten months, while health authorities predict that the infection curve will continue to rise in February. 

COVAX doses awaited

The GAVI Vaccine Alliance confirmed last week that some 280 million doses of anti-COVID vaccines will arrive in Latin America this year through the COVAX programme. 

Under this mechanism, the region has nearly 30 countries or territories with the capacity to purchase the vaccines and 10 eligible to receive them as donations: Bolivia, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. 

PAHO's Revolving Fund had estimated in recent months that 273 million doses will be needed to vaccinate 20% of the Latin American and Caribbean population (with a schedule of two applications at US$10.55 each), which implies a projected cost of US$2,714,200,000. 

According to the PAHO announcement, the vaccine that will be delivered initially is from the British company AstraZeneca, which is still under analysis by the WHO to receive approval for emergency use, which could happen in the next few days.

"COVAX now has a better idea of the timing for emergency use approval of the main products in its portfolio, the main one being AstraZeneca's (vaccine), which we expect to be available from February," WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward said today. 

With this, it is estimated that in this first stage, around 35.3 million doses will be arriving in the Americas. 

The number of vaccines was reported directly to each nation and in the case of Nicaragua, a country eligible to receive them as a donation, the government reported today that the WHO guaranteed the delivery of 504,000 doses in the short term. 

PAHO said that the countries and territories on the continent that have already received notification of delivery of COVAX vaccines are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador and El Salvador. 

Also St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. 

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