With slowing COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to the Americas, Director of the Pan American Health Organization, Dr Carissa Etienne, is urging countries that a “comprehensive strategy” of not just immunization but also adherence to public health measures is needed to curb the current COVID-19 surge.

Speaking during her weekly media briefing yesterday (April 14), Etienne said: “I cannot stress this enough –  for most countries, vaccines are not going to stop this wave of the pandemic…There are simply not enough of them available to protect everyone in the countries at greatest risk.”

As a result of this, Etienne said “we need to stop transmission by any means possible with the tools we have at hand”.

She added that “this will require comprehensive strategies to both accelerate the rollout of vaccines and control the virus using proven public health measures,” such as the wearing of masks, social distancing, and practicing good hand hygiene.

Since March, PAHO’s Revolving Fund has helped deliver more than three million doses of COVAX-procured vaccines to 28 countries.

The Revolving Fund negotiates, purchases, and arranges logistics for the shipment of vaccines to the 36 countries that participate in COVAX. 

So far in the Americas, more than 247 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, including through deals countries made individually with vaccine producers.

Despite this, the pandemic continues to surge across the Americas. In the past week, more than 1.3 million people were infected with the virus and nearly 36,000 people died from the disease.

Owing to this upsurge in the virus and the constraints on producers of COVAX vaccines which have slowed deliveries and supplies, Etienne says, “we cannot rely on vaccines to control transmission”.