GENEVA, May 1 (NNN-Xinhua) — More than 62 million COVID-19 cases and over 1.5 million deaths have been reported in the region of the Americas, combining North, South and Central America, in the last 15 months, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
“At this moment, most of the countries in South America … are reporting increasing trends … And in many of these countries, ICUs (intensive care units) are overwhelmed with severe patients,” Sylvain Aldighieri, Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization, WHO’s Regional Office for the Americas, told a virtual press conference.
According to the latest WHO statistics, the Americas currently tops all six WHO regions in both cumulative COVID-19 infections and deaths, accounting for over 40 percent of global confirmed cases and more than 47 percent of global deaths.
The WHO said on Wednesday that 1.4 million new cases were found in the Americas last week. Brazil reported the highest number of deaths in the region, with 17,667 new deaths in the past week.
Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga told the press conference that the country’s priority is the vaccination campaign.
The Brazilian president has also allocated more than 3 billion reals (555 million U.S. dollars) “so that we can buy (more) doses (of vaccine),” he said.
“By Monday, we will have administered more than 16 million doses of vaccinations against COVID-19,” said the minister.
All Brazilians can be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of the year, Queiroga said.
“We have enough doses for the second half (of the year) and it is possible to guarantee that by the end of 2021 our entire population will be vaccinated,” Queiroga said.
Brazil expects to have 500 million vaccine doses available by the year end, said Queiroga. Nevertheless, he again called on countries with surplus doses to donate them to Brazil.
“We reiterate our call to those who have extra doses of the vaccine to share them with Brazil, and we can contain the critical phase of the pandemic and prevent the proliferation of new variants of the virus,” said the minister. — NNN-XINHUA
