Officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned about the recent significant surges of COVID-19 cases in several Caribbean countries.
As neighboring regions in the Americas record a decline in new cases (North America), and deaths (Central America), the Caribbean is facing an increase on infections, with Dominican Republic and Barbados leading in the rising numbers of cases.
Just this Friday, Dominican Republic announced 793 new positive cases of coronavirus, as per The Dominican Today, bringing the number to 374,722 since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Barbados recorded almost 400 new cases last Wednesday.
According to a report by The New York Times, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that the two Caribbean countries recorded a 40 percent increase in their COVID-19 cases in the last week.
“Half of Barbados’s cumulative COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began have been reported in the last month,” Dr. Etienne was quoted at a news conference.
Situation in South America is also improving, except for Bolivia and Venezuela, the organization said. PAHO is a division of the WHO.
The New York Times further reported that cases are also rising in Trinidad and Tobago, St. Martin, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and the Cayman Islands.
Dr. Etienne also lamented about those who still have hesitations about the vaccine, saying that it makes the distribution of vaccines in the Caribbean challenging, on top of the difficulty obtaining these doses.
“It really troubles me that some of my Caribbean brothers and sisters have been slow to accept the Covid-19 vaccines that have been made available to them,” said Dr. Etienne.
Data from the PAHO showed that 41 percent of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The PAHO director called for a more stringent testing drive, emphasizing that “any fresh outbreaks could be caught before they developed into widespread surges.”
“More and more, we’re seeing how local hot spots are driving national trends,” Dr. Etienne said.
She suggested an integration of surveillance for Covid-19 with monitoring of other respiratory viruses. PAHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States are collaborating to develop a new protocol for PCR testing that would examine the same samples for both COVID-19 and influenza.
Dr. Etienne added that strong surveillance networks could also help detect emerging pathogens before they spread, and serve “as the region’s backbone for pandemic preparedness.” (https://thecaribbeannewsnow.com/covid-19-cases-in-the-caribbean-are-rising/)
