WASHINGTON, DC — Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Carissa F Etienne yesterday asserted that the “tragic march of the COVID-19 pandemic” has exposed the urgent need for investments to strengthen health systems and technology production across the Americas.
She made the comments at yesterday’s opening of the 59th Directing Council of PAHO.
The region’s inability to procure key COVID-19 supplies and equipment, including vaccines, “heightened our vulnerabilities and severely compromised our pandemic response”, Etienne said.
“However, this alarming circumstance has galvanized us into recognizing the obligatory need for regional self-sufficiency in health technologies.”
She added that PAHO recently launched a platform to boost regional vaccine production and that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and other partners have expressed interest in collaboration.
The Directing Council, held virtually from September 20-24 this year, brings together ministers and other health authorities from countries throughout the Americas to discuss and deliberate on important policy recommendations for the region.
During the session, Etienne’s presented PAHO’s Annual Report, which covers the period between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, and focuses on PAHO’s technical cooperation to assist countries in responding to the pandemic while maintaining and strengthening health gains.
Etienne also called attention to the “enormity” of the pandemic’s human toll, noting that as of last Friday, there were 87.6 million COVID-19 cases and 2.16 million deaths.
“It is noteworthy that after every disaster, be it a natural disaster, a major disease outbreak like Ebola or a financial crisis, we all reaffirm our commitment to building resilient health systems,” she said.
“Sadly, if nothing else, this pandemic has demonstrated that our continuing failure to deliver on this commitment does indeed carry a high price tag in terms of the millions of lives lost and economies that are destroyed.
“I urge us all to invest in our health systems and swiftly ensure their transformation so they have the capacity to respond to the needs of all people every day and to better respond to pandemics and other disasters when they do occur.”
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra acknowledged the inequity exposed by the pandemic.
“While the COVID-19 pandemic intensified inequities in America and around the world, we must not let it derail our goals of advancing health and well-being for all our people,” he said.
“We are proud to have directly donated 38 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to 15 countries in Latin America to date.”
He added: “We look forward to sharing more in the months ahead as supplies become available.”
President of the IDB Mauricio Claver-Carone expressed support for “multilateral alliances” to increase regional vaccine production and indicated that the pandemic also highlighted the need for digitization of public health information.
“This is essential to strengthen epidemiological surveillance actions; facilitate access to and use of services through telemedicine; enable communication; and provide data for real-time decision making, among other uses,” he said.
