COVID-19 - PAHO/WHO Response, Report 62 (22 October 2021)

On 14 October 2021, PAHO and the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC) released a new joint report on the prolongation of the health crisis and its impact on health, the economy, and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The two United Nations agencies urged governments of the Region to accelerate vaccination processes, transform health systems, strengthen public investment, and consolidate their welfare states to control the pandemic and move towards recovery with equality and environmental sustainability. The report findings were presented by PAHO’s Director Dr. Carissa F. Etienne and ECLAC’s Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena during a press conference that highlighted that the health crisis in 2020 sparked the most severe economic contraction of the past 120 years in Latin America and the Caribbean, which also saw the worst economic performance of all the developing regions. In the report, PAHO and ECLAC emphasize that global asymmetry and institutional fragmentation in the access to COVID-19 vaccines demonstrate the urgent need to strengthen regional coordination and integration mechanisms, as well as international cooperation. “The prolongation of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world’s most inequitable region has demonstrated the centrality that health has for welfare, the economy and development. It is time to transform Latin America and the Caribbean’s health systems based on a primary health care approach, to accelerate the post-pandemic recovery, recoup and maintain achievements in public health and resume the path towards universal health, ensuring access to health and to vaccination for all those who need it”, stated PAHO’s Director.