ABSTRACT
The vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has been recognized as a priority strategy to safeguard public health. However, disparities in productive, acquisitive and distributional capacity have led to delays in immunization, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Consequently, global coverage is expected to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 by 2023 or 2024, although with highly variable coverage percentages among countries. In Latin America, immunization against COVID-19 faces different challenges to achieve herd immunity. To date (February 6, 2022), the countries that had several doses needed to immunize their populations with at least two doses (number of doses between population) were Peru (520.7%), Chile (458.4%), Argentina (298.0%), Brazil (236.6%), Bolivia (206.0%) and Uruguay (unconfirmed doses). On the other hand, Uruguay (210.7%) and Chile (238.3%) have applied twice as many doses as their populations. Argentina (194.3%), Brazil (173.6%), Ecuador (170.3%), Peru (170.3%), Costa Rica (161.1%), and Panama (153.5%) are on the way to achieving this goal. In addition, Latin American countries also showed an insufficient distribution of vaccines and a storage capacity limited to only a few cities and multiple frequencies of vaccine hesitancy. Due to these scenarios, the production of more vaccine doses and equitable distribution to the rest of the population within the Latin American region should remain a public health priority to achieve collective immunity in the shortest time possible. Copyright © 2022 Asociacion Colombiana de Infectologia. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: The Human Development Index (HDI), uses three dimensions of development such as life expectancy, access to education and income level. It has been seen worldwide that socioeconomically vulnerable groups are the least protected and face the highest risk of COVID-19. This study aims to evaluate the correlation between HDI, GINI inequality index and COVID-19 case fatality rate in American countries. Study: An ecological observational study was developed, using COVID-19 metrics from Latin American countries. The outcome variable was COVID-19 case fatality rate, and the exposure variables were HDI, GINI, life expectancy, years of schooling, proportion of people over 60 years of age and GDP per capita. Once the data were collected, analyses were performed. We used the spearman correlation method, with a significance level of 95%. Findings: Twenty-four Latin American countries were evaluated, finding a COVID 19 case fatality rate with a median of 2.41 and with 1.55 and 3.04 as 25th and 75th percentile respectively, obtaining also with extreme values Ecuador, Mexico and Peru with 6.41, 7.57 and 9.12 respectively. When evaluating the correlation of the COVID 19 case fatality rate, a weak negative linear correlation was found between HDI, schooling index and life expectancy with rho= -0.253, -0.342 and -0.342 respectively, however, statistical significance was not found (p-value >0.05). Conclusions: It was found among Latin American countries that there is a weak negative linear correlation between COVID 19 case fatality rate and HDI, schooling index and life expectancy. © 2021 Revista del Cuerpo Medico Hospital Nacional Almanzor Aguinaga Asenjo. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Under the context of the Pandemic COVID-19, there have been extreme situations in health that need to be transferred to the processes of medical education. Objectives: To include real cases presented in the pandemic for their analysis as a strategy to update the teaching and learning of bioethics and scientific integrity in medicine. Methods: 150 Peruvian medical students analyzed emblematic historical cases of bioethics and cases related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interest in analyzing the cases, academic performance, and quality of ethical analysis were compared. Results: Students showed better performance, interest, and quality of analysis, with a significant difference (p < 0.001) in the evaluation of COVID-19 cases. Conclusions: Analysis of pandemic-related cases improved critical ethical analysis skills in medical students. The pandemic has provided an opportunity to update bioethics and scientific integrity content in virtual environments. © 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors
ABSTRACT
Introduction. The Covid 19 pandemic has caused high lethality in the Lambayeque region, collapsing hospitals. Objectives: describe, by gender, the characteristics of clinic discharge patients with sars-cov2 hospitalized at EsSalud in the Lambayeque region. Material and Methods: Observational, retrospective, descriptive study, selecting a representative sample of confirmed COVID 19 cases between April 1 to June 30, 2020 at the Almanzor Aguinaga Asenjo National Hospital (HNAAA) and the Luis Heysen Inchaustegui Hospital (FILHI) ;as exclusion criteria: those with less than 48 hours of stay, the deceased and those referred to other establishments. The clinical history data were collected in the SGSS system, Excel software was used for data processing. Results: 329 patients were registered, of which 70% were male, mean age 55.9 +1 - 11 years;Diagnosis was by serological test 80% and chest tomography 17%. Dyspnea was the predominant symptom 85%, lymphopenia 51% and high C-reactive protein 39% and high LDH 35%. Treatment was mainly oxygen 89% and enoxaparin 87%, azithromycin 86% and ceftriaxone 70%, hospital complications were ARDS 88.1% and atypical pneumonia 86.6%, hospital stay was 7.85 + / - 5.42 days. Conclusions: The majority of hospitalized in Essalud were men, average age 55.9 years;main symptom dyspnea;lymphopenia with high C-reactive protein and LDH predominated;the treatment was based on oxygen and enoxaparin, mean hospital stay of 7.85 days.
ABSTRACT
Background: Peru was considered the highest fatality rate due to COVID-19 (9.39%);Lambayeque being in July 2020 it presented the highest seroprevalences reported in the world for SARS-CoV-2 with 29.5%. Objective. To describe the experience of the strategy implemented by Rapid Response and Clinical Follow-up Teams of COVID-19 Cases (ERSC) to reduce COVID-19 lethality, during the first wave in 2020. Strategy description. Operational research was conducted in a retrospective cohort. The population studied was made up of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases during the April-December 2020 period, treated at the Lambayeque Healthcare Network. The methodology was carried out under the Implementation and operation of the ERSCs that performed Epidemiological Surveillance, tracking and home clinical follow-up of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases. The initial patient recruitment and screening process was carried out through three processes: differentiated screening, "call center" and rumor surveillance. After screening, the patient was categorized based on the care required. Cases were assigned to rapid response teams who went to the patient's home to carry out the activities indicated according to the type of brigade. There were four brigades: home clinical evaluation brigades, home diagnostic or laboratory brigades, clinical follow-up brigades and mole brigades. findings. Case fatality in moderate/severe patients decreased from 60% (Epidemiological Week 19) to 10% (Epidemiological Week 50) (p<0.001). The strategy implemented and executed reduced COVID-19 case-fatality in the population served.