Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) member countries are being encouraged to prepare to leverage and deploy new pharmaceuticals being developed to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19).<\/p>\n
Director of PAHO, Dr Carissa Etienne, notes that several \u201cpromising\u201d new drugs are in late-stage development \u201cthat may help us treat COVID-19, and thus avoid hospitalisations and prevent deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking during PAHO’s COVID-19 digital media briefing on Wednesday, December 15, the Director said if they are approved by the regulatory authorities, \u201cwe must be ready to leverage these technologies, building on the lessons of the last two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Etienne said key among the emerging COVID-19 lessons is that every decision \u201cmust be grounded in evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge countries in our region to heed the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO), expert committees, scientists, and regulators whose job it is to carefully review the safety and efficacy of drugs and recommend when, where and how to deploy them,\u201d she emphasised.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Dr Etienne said that as new treatments gain final approvals, countries and companies must collaborate to ensure that everyone who can benefit has timely access, \u201cat a price that our [states] can afford,\u201d stressing that \u201cwe must be ready to deploy these\u2026 once they become available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting that procurement and supply can be \u201cmajor barriers\u201d and restrict access to innovations for those needing these most, the Director said work to expand regional production capacity must begin immediately, so countries do not remain completely dependent on pharmaceutical imports.<\/p>\n
Dr Etienne contended that while it is encouraging that some companies developing COVID-19 antivirals have pledged to make their products available at affordable prices to the world’s poorest countries, \u201cwe worry that many of [those] that have been hardest hit by COVID-19 \u2013 including many in our region \u2013 do not qualify for these pledges.\u201d<\/p>\n
She maintained that without additional support, \u201cmany of our countries will be left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pointing out that PAHO is tracking this development closely, Dr Etienne said the entity is \u201con deck\u201d to support countries, international organisations, companies, and partners to find alternative solutions that guarantee access to future COVID therapeutic tools, including antivirals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis region has the technical expertise, a well-established manufacturing capacity, strong regulatory infrastructure, and an effective pooled procurement mechanism, via our Strategic Fund that if effectively leveraged, will help us accelerate access to COVID technologies,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Dr Etienne said for this regional effort to work, companies’ goodwill is needed to openly share these technologies and resources to all countries so that the Americas are not left behind as new tools become available.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most important lessons this pandemic has taught us is the importance of solidarity and of working together. Effective collaboration across borders enabled vaccines to be developed in record-time, variants to be identified quickly, and countries to adjust their responses, based on the latest available evidence,\u201d she pointed out.<\/p>\n
Dr Etienne maintained that \u201ceach time we worked together, we had breakthroughs; so sharing is central to defeating this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) member countries are being encouraged to prepare to leverage and deploy new pharmaceuticals being developed to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19). Director of PAHO, Dr Carissa Etienne, notes that several \u201cpromising\u201d […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"category-regional-news"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=1300%2C910&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=1300%2C910&ssl=1",1300,910,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg",1300,910,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg",1300,910,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=300%2C210&ssl=1",300,210,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=1024%2C717&ssl=1",1024,717,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=1300%2C910&ssl=1",1300,910,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?fit=1300%2C910&ssl=1",1300,910,true],"mh-magazine-slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=1030%2C438&ssl=1",1030,438,true],"mh-magazine-content":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=678%2C381&ssl=1",678,381,true],"mh-magazine-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=678%2C509&ssl=1",678,509,true],"mh-magazine-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=326%2C245&ssl=1",326,245,true],"mh-magazine-small":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drealfmgrenada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Dr.-C.-Etienne-1.jpg?resize=80%2C60&ssl=1",80,60,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"adminrfm","author_link":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/author\/adminrfm\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Health<\/a> Regional News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) member countries are being encouraged to prepare to leverage and deploy new pharmaceuticals being developed to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19). Director of PAHO, Dr Carissa Etienne, notes that several \u201cpromising\u201d [...]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9819,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9817\/revisions\/9819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}