RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Peru had become the Latin American country with the greatest reduction in daily deaths from Covid-19 and has also achieved an 80% drop in cases in adults over 65 years of age since the end of last March, when the peak of the second wave of the epidemic occurred.
The decrease in deaths was highlighted on Thursday (8) in a report by the newspaper El Comercio, which compared the databases of 18 Latin American countries with the daily deaths in Peru, which went from 533 to 277 between May and June.
Read also: Check out our coverage on Peru
The Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported that confirmed cases in the elderly have decreased by more than 80% “since the peak of the second wave”, which was recorded during the fourth week of last March.
These figures are presented during the immunization campaign against Covid-19, which has already applied 8,496,434 doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sinopharm vaccines in the country.
Peru, which currently reports 2,032,613 cases and 193,743 deaths from the pandemic, became last June 1 the country with the world’s highest death rate from the disease, after the government tripled its death toll since the start of the pandemic.
LARGE REDUCTION IN DEATHS
However, the reduction in deaths between May and last June placed Peru ahead of other countries in the region, such as Brazil, which in the same period saw a decrease from 1,818 to 1,665, or Mexico, which recorded a drop from 207 to 174 deaths.
The newspaper’s analysis of the situation in 18 countries between May and June indicated that daily deaths have decreased in Peru (-256), Brazil (-153), Mexico (-33), Ecuador (-29), Honduras (-12), Uruguay (-10), Costa Rica (-4) and Venezuela (-1).
He added that the countries that have presented an increase in daily deaths are Colombia (+98), Argentina (+74), Paraguay (+33), Bolivia (+22), Chile (+15), Guatemala (+14), Panama (+2), and Dominican Republic (+1). At the same time, the information from Nicaragua and El Salvador remained unchanged.
Peru presents these figures while advancing with its vaccination process, which despite having reached only 10% of citizens with two doses so far, already allows “identifying some progress”.
THE VOICE OF THE EXPERTS
In this regard, the immunology expert Juan More Bayona remarked to the newspaper that Peru had focused its vaccination process on populations highly susceptible to the disease, which has allowed the notorious drop in mortality.
Alfonso J. Rodriguez-Morales, vice-president of the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases, added that if the people most prone to suffer severe forms of the disease are protected, deaths from the disease can be reduced.
“In Peru and other Latin American countries, where the elderly population has been vaccinated, as well as health personnel, a clear reduction in transmission and deaths from Covid-19 in these groups is beginning to be observed,” he said.
More added that consideration should also be given to the population that has already been exposed to the virus and has developed “a certain degree” of immunity. At the same time, Rodriguez-Morales mentioned continuing health security measures, which he recommended be maintained.
El Comercio also reported that eight countries in the region had seen a reduction in the average number of Covid-19 positive cases per day, with Argentina and Peru leading the way, dropping from 25,484 to 21,660 and 5,161 to 3,000, respectively.
DECREASE IN CASES IN PERU
In this regard, the Ministry of Health (Minsa) pointed out that cases among “older adults” (aged 65 years and over) have decreased by more than 80% since the last week of March, when 11,060 confirmed cases were reported, while in the third week of June, 1,670 cases were recorded.
“This decrease had occurred progressively since week 13 until reaching numbers similar to or lower than those that existed before the upturn, which appeared during the beginning of the second wave, at the end of December of last year,” detailed epidemiologist César Munayco, from the National Center for Epidemiology and Disease Control (CDC).
The specialist emphasized that the downward trend is repeated in the number of hospitalizations due to Covid-19 at the national level. In the country, “less than 50 hospitalizations among older adults per week” are being registered.
Munayco said that deaths with a confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19 among adults aged 69 and older also show a progressive decrease. However, he remarked that citizens who have already been vaccinated should maintain health safety measures such as masks and physical distancing, given the risk of a third wave of the epidemic in the country.