Dur­ing a re­gion­al work­shop in Ar­genti­na, the Di­rec­tor of PA­HO called for coun­tries to in­crease in­vest­ment in epi­dem­ic and pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness, be­cause the ques­tion is not “if there will be a new pan­dem­ic, but when...” 

Buenos Aires, (PA­HO) – With the aim of sup­port­ing coun­tries in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to de­vel­op or up­date their op­er­a­tional plans to face fu­ture pan­demics, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) is hold­ing a re­gion­al work­shop on pre­pared­ness and re­sponse to events with pan­dem­ic and epi­dem­ic po­ten­tial in Buenos Aires this week. This work­shop will build on the lessons learned from COVID-19.

"As we meet to­day, we con­tin­ue to deal with the cur­rent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and, at the same time, we are fac­ing an out­break of Mon­key­pox in sev­er­al coun­tries," said PA­HO Di­rec­tor Caris­sa F. Eti­enne.

COVID-19, she said, "has been a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge" and "a stark re­minder of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty we all have to in­vest in pre­ven­tion, pre­pared­ness and re­sponse to com­mu­ni­ca­ble pathogen events”.

Dr. Eti­enne high­light­ed that, as of last Wednes­day, there were 170 mil­lion cas­es and near­ly 3 mil­lion deaths due to COVID-19 in the Amer­i­c­as. She not­ed that oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry pathogens are re-emerg­ing, and that sea­son­al in­fluen­za caus­es be­tween 290,000 and 650,000 deaths each year in the re­gion.

"We must nev­er for­get that it is not a ques­tion of whether a pan­dem­ic will oc­cur due to a new in­fluen­za virus, but when it will oc­cur," she warned.

"Our ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond to health emer­gen­cies de­pends on what we have done be­fore they oc­cur and what we have learned dur­ing pre­vi­ous emer­gen­cies such as COVID-19," said the PA­HO Di­rec­tor dur­ing the open­ing of the work­shop.  The work­shop brings to­geth­er tech­ni­cal ex­perts in epi­demi­ol­o­gy, lab­o­ra­to­ry, im­mu­niza­tion and risk com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the min­istries of Health of Ar­genti­na, Bo­livia, Colom­bia, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, Haiti, Hon­duras, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Suri­name.

A pre­pared­ness and re­sponse plan for events with epi­dem­ic and pan­dem­ic po­ten­tial is one of the core ca­pac­i­ties re­quired by the In­ter­na­tion­al Health Reg­u­la­tions (IHR), a legal­ly bind­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion adopt­ed by Mem­ber States of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) to pre­vent and re­spond to pub­lic health threats that can cross bor­ders and af­fect pop­u­la­tions around the world.

Dr. Eti­enne as­sert­ed: "Func­tion­ing health sys­tems are the foun­da­tion of health se­cu­ri­ty, and it is es­sen­tial to se­cure sup­ply chains of vac­cines, med­i­cines, lab­o­ra­to­ry reagents, per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment and oth­er strate­gic pub­lic health goods be­fore the next emer­gency oc­curs, and strength­en the re­silience of health sys­tems with hu­man re­sources and plan­ning."

The PA­HO Di­rec­tor re­called that two cen­tres in Ar­genti­na and Brazil were des­ig­nat­ed by WHO for the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of vac­cines us­ing mR­NA tech­nol­o­gy, some­thing that is ex­pect­ed to im­prove time­ly and eq­ui­table ac­cess to vac­cines in the re­gion and con­tribute to health self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

"All of this is key for us to be pre­pared to re­spond and suc­ceed dur­ing emer­gen­cies that threat­en our re­gion," she stressed.

The Min­is­ter of Health of Ar­genti­na, Car­la Viz­zot­ti, con­sid­ered that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic showed that health "must be a pri­or­i­ty for every­one" be­cause "with­out health one can­not study, work or pro­duce".

Af­ter in­di­cat­ing that the gov­ern­ment had to re­for­mu­late its re­sponse to the pan­dem­ic, Viz­zot­ti said that the re­gion must tack­le the chal­lenges around ac­cess to med­ical sup­plies—some­thing learned dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic—and "think about how we can pro­duce and ex­pand ac­cess to vac­cines.”

Re­flect­ing on the coun­tries' re­sponse to the emer­gency, Viz­zot­ti stat­ed:

“We were able to do many things in a very short time. We have to look back to see what we learned, but al­so for­ward in or­der to make im­prove­ments and take ac­tion that will bet­ter po­si­tion us for the next pan­dem­ic.”

"The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is not over yet," said the PA­HO Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Ar­genti­na, Eva Jané Llop­is.

She added that since the de­c­la­ra­tion of the pub­lic health emer­gency of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern on Jan­u­ary 30, 2020, due to its great scope and du­ra­tion.

“The re­sponse had to be ad­just­ed, to seek fund­ing and in­volve oth­er sec­tors. Re­flect­ing on what we did, tak­ing it to the lev­el of strate­gies, and think­ing about oth­er epi­demi­o­log­i­cal chal­lenges is cru­cial to con­tin­ue mov­ing for­ward,” she said.

PA­HO ex­pects to hold sim­i­lar work­shops with oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion dur­ing 2022. The out­puts of this and oth­er work­shops will in­te­grate the vi­sion of the Amer­i­c­as re­gion in­to glob­al pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness and re­sponse doc­u­ments and guide­lines.