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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

PAHO warns of rising COVID cases, hospitalisations

by

1133 days ago
20220504
Dr Carissa Etienne

Dr Carissa Etienne

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While coun­tries across the re­gion are en­joy­ing some free­dom be­cause the COVID-19 Omi­cron vari­ant is cau­se­ing mild symp­toms in most peo­ple, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) is warn­ing that new cas­es and hos­pi­tal ad­mit­tance are ris­ing in the Amer­i­c­as.

The re­gion re­port­ed over 616,000 new cas­es in the last week, a 12.7 per cent in­crease over the pre­vi­ous week, while there were more than 4200 deaths, a less than 1 per cent de­crease.

At PA­HO’s me­dia con­fer­ence on COVID-19 in the Amer­i­c­as yes­ter­day, Di­rec­tor Dr Caris­sa Eti­enne said the Caribbean showed a 15.4 per cent in­crease in new in­fec­tions, with cas­es ris­ing in 24 of the 34 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries. Deaths al­so in­creased for the third con­sec­u­tive week by 39.6 per cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous week.
 Cas­es rose in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca by 53.4 per cent, with three of sev­en coun­tries re­port­ing in­creas­es, while deaths con­tin­ue to de­cline.

In North Amer­i­ca, cas­es in­creased for the fifth con­sec­u­tive week, ris­ing 19.5 per cent from the pre­vi­ous week. The Unit­ed States (US) re­port­ed a 27.1 per cent in­crease while Cana­da and Mex­i­co de­clined in new in­fec­tions. The US and Cana­da saw a rise in week­ly COVID-19 hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions.

In South Amer­i­ca, there was an over­all eight per cent de­crease in new in­fec­tions, al­though sev­en of the 10 coun­tries re­port­ed in­creas­es in cas­es.

“Every coun­try and ter­ri­to­ry across the re­gion re­port­ed an in­crease in hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions and in­creas­es in ad­mis­sion to In­ten­sive Care Units. COVID-19 cas­es and hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions are ris­ing in far too many places. It should prompt us to strength­en our meth­ods to com­bat the virus, in­clud­ing sur­veil­lance and pre­pared­ness,” Eti­enne said.

She said it is cru­cial for coun­tries to mon­i­tor the evo­lu­tion of the coro­n­avirus and main­tain ad­e­quate test­ing ca­pac­i­ty, as da­ta can help plan and ad­just pre­ven­tive mea­sures, com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly with the pub­lic and re­in­force hos­pi­tal ca­pac­i­ty if need­ed.

As In­ter­na­tion­al Nurs­es’ Day ap­proach­es, Eti­enne said coun­tries need to pro­vide ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion and men­tal health sup­port for these health­care work­ers. Nurs­es are on the front­line, help­ing save lives dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, but many strug­gle from burnout and men­tal health con­di­tions, she said.

A COVID-19 Health­care Work­ers Study shows that al­most a quar­ter of health­care work­ers in­ter­viewed in 2020 pre­sent­ed symp­toms of a de­pres­sive episode and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 per cent re­port­ed hav­ing sui­ci­dal ideas.

On­ly a third of those who need­ed psy­cho­log­i­cal care could re­ceive it in some coun­tries. In Brazil, Guatemala and Co­lum­bia, more than one of 10 mem­bers of a health work­force had symp­toms of se­vere de­pres­sion.

“To­day, nurs­es shoul­der the dual bur­den of car­ing for COVID-19 pa­tients and catch­ing up those who have missed rou­tine health­care check­ups over the past two years. These over­lap­ping stres­sors cause some of them to move away from their home ar­eas, leav­ing hos­pi­tals and health cen­tres dras­ti­cal­ly un­der­staffed.”

Eti­enne said an­oth­er study showed four per cent of nurs­es said they in­tend­ed to leave the pro­fes­sion be­cause of the pan­dem­ic. She said when nurs­es face dif­fi­cul­ty in their jobs, the en­tire health sys­tem suf­fers.

PA­HO found that in a study done in the Caribbean, about 45 per cent of nurs­es left their jobs for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions. Eti­enne said coun­tries need to dou­ble their in­vest­ment to grow their nurs­ing work­force and care for ex­ist­ing nurs­es.

“To meet our health needs, PA­HO es­ti­mates that the re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as will need 1.8 mil­lion more nurs­es by 2030. The Unit­ed States will need to add 1.2 mil­lion nurs­es to its work­force and Cana­da will need 60,000 more by 2025. To reach these goals and re­tain our ex­ist­ing nurs­es, coun­tries must have clear poli­cies to de­vel­op and main­tain the health work­force.”

Eti­enne said coun­tries can im­prove gov­er­nance by cre­at­ing more se­nior lead­er­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties for nurs­es and el­e­vat­ing nurs­es with­in the gov­ern­ment and min­istries of health. She said Ja­maica and Brazil are al­ready work­ing on new poli­cies.

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