PA­HO, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, has de­nounced a video it warns is a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to spread mis­in­for­ma­tion about COVID-19 vac­cines that has gone vi­ral in so­cial me­dia, which PA­HO says is us­ing its name and lo­go fraud­u­lent­ly.

The video in ques­tion re­port­ed­ly de­scribes it­self as a “Pub­lic Warn­ing Alert” and dis­cuss­es what it main­tains are the dan­gers of COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion in chil­dren.

The mak­ers of the video al­lege sev­er­al health im­pacts, in­clud­ing steril­i­ty, could re­sult from such vac­ci­na­tion.

PA­HO de­scribes the video as “false and defam­a­to­ry” and warns “chil­dren’s health will be put at se­ri­ous risk” if par­ents and guardians heed the “mis­in­for­ma­tion” in the video.

The fol­low­ing is full text of PA­HO’s of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter…

Wash­ing­ton, D.C. (PA­HO) – A so­cial me­dia video from an uniden­ti­fied source un­law­ful­ly us­ing the lo­go and name of the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) is cir­cu­lat­ing in Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean coun­tries as a “Pub­lic Warn­ing Alert” on COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion in chil­dren.

PA­HO would like to in­form the pub­lic that the mes­sage does not re­flect the po­si­tion of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion, and that it con­tains false and defam­a­to­ry in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing PA­HO’s ac­tiv­i­ties, projects, and fund­ing. 

Fur­ther­more, the mis­in­for­ma­tion con­tained in the video that COVID-19 vac­cines are dan­ger­ous to chil­dren, cause in­fec­tions and can lead them to be­come ster­ile is not based on sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence. If this mis­in­for­ma­tion is fol­lowed by par­ents and guardians, chil­dren’s health will be put at se­ri­ous risk.

Coro­n­avirus dis­ease (COVID-19) is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and can lead to se­vere dis­ease in peo­ple at any age, es­pe­cial­ly those with un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tions. The virus has caused over 17,500 deaths in Eng­lish-, Dutch- and French-speak­ing Caribbean coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries since 2020.

COVID-19 vac­cines are safe and ef­fec­tive, and pro­vide strong pro­tec­tion against se­ri­ous ill­ness, hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, and death from COVID-19.

PA­HO’s COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion strat­e­gy fol­lows the ad­vice of World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) Strate­gic Ad­vi­so­ry Group of Ex­perts (SAGE) on Im­mu­niza­tion and PA­HO’s Tech­ni­cal Ad­vi­so­ry Group (TAG) for Vac­cines and Im­mu­niza­tion in the Amer­i­c­as.

SAGE and TAG com­prise in­de­pen­dent­ly ap­point­ed ex­perts who re­view the clin­i­cal ev­i­dence on vac­cine safe­ty and ef­fec­tive­ness be­fore mak­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion.

Both cur­rent­ly rec­om­mend that peo­ple get vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 to pre­vent se­vere dis­ease and death, with vac­cines ap­proved un­der WHO Emer­gency Use List­ing (EUL).

SAGE and TAG rec­om­mend that coun­tries must achieve at least 70% cov­er­age with a pri­ma­ry vac­ci­na­tion se­ries among the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion and 100% in high-risk pri­or­i­ty groups.

PA­HO re­it­er­ates the im­por­tance of im­ple­ment­ing com­pre­hen­sive COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion strate­gies to reach these tar­gets.

The Or­ga­ni­za­tion is work­ing with Caribbean Gov­ern­ments and oth­er part­ners to in­form the pop­u­la­tion of the Caribbean and to en­cour­age moth­ers to pro­tect their chil­dren with the COVID-19 vac­cine.  

PA­HO con­demns the unau­tho­rized and fraud­u­lent use of its name and lo­go to spread any mis­in­for­ma­tion.