Brazil reported a record 34,918 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the same day that one of the senior officials leading the country’s widely criticized response to the crisis said the outbreak was under control.
After being the first continent in the world declared free of measles in 2016, nine countries in the region have registered cases last year. With almost 900 cases, Venezuela was the most affected. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warns that the countries of the region should intensify their efforts to immunize the population and stop the spread of the disease.
Brazil launched a mass immunization campaign that will deliver fractional doses of yellow fever vaccine to residents of 69 municipalities in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The strategic plan for the campaign was developed with support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It will be the world’s largest vaccination campaign, to date, using fractional doses of yellow fever vaccine.
By Carissa F. Etienne (*) Though the devastating health effects of tobacco use are well known, tobacco’s negative repercussions extend well beyond the obvious health outcomes.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has already infected more than 13,500 people in Colombia and could hit as many as 700,000, the health minister said on Wednesday. According to Pan-American Health Organization figures, the country is second only to Brazil in infection rates, health minister Alejandro Gaviria told journalists.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) says the number of new cases of the Chikungunya in the Caribbean increased by nearly 38,000 last week with the Dominican Republic having the most cases.