The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

DUE to high levels of COVID-19 infections in the region, prenatal and newborn care have been disrupted, leaving expectant and new mothers at risk, according to Pan American Health Organisation officials.

During PAHO’s weekly webinar, the organisation’s director, Dr Carissa Etienne focused on women and pregnancy to commemorate this week’s “International Day of Action on Women’s Health”.

“The evidence is clear that pregnant women are at a higher risk for severe disease and hospitalisation due to infection with SARS-CoV-2,” she said. “So we can start by ensuring that women and girls can access the health services they need – like sexual and reproductive health services, and pregnancy and newborn-related care – during the COVID response.

“We must remember that the challenges and inequities that we faced prior to COVID haven’t gone away during the pandemic – they’ve only worsened and can’t be overlooked. That’s why we must make protecting the lives of women a collective priority.”

Dr Etienne said according to United Nations estimates, up to 20 million women in the Americas will have their birth control disrupted during the pandemic – either because services are unavailable or because women will no longer have the means to pay for contraception.

“But it’s not just reproductive services which are being impacted,” she said.

“If this continues, the pandemic is expected to obliterate more than 20 years of progress in expanding women’s access to family planning and tackling maternal deaths in the region.

“Nearly all maternal deaths are preventable and even getting back to pre-pandemic levels of maternal mortality, which were already high, could take more than a decade.

“Like all of us, pregnant women are exposed to COVID-19 infections, but because their immune systems change throughout their pregnancies, pregnant women are more vulnerable to respiratory infections, like COVID-19. Once they get sick, they also tend to develop more serious symptoms that require intubation, which can often put the baby and mother at risk.”

Data from 24 countries indicates that more than 200,000 pregnant women in the region have fallen ill with COVID and at least a thousand have died from COVID complications.

“The risk of death also depends on where you look,” Dr Etienne said. “While pregnant women have less than a one percent chance of dying from COVID in Argentina, Costa Rica and Colombia, the risk of death in Honduras jumps to 5 percent, and the risk remains highest in Brazil, at seven percent.

“Unfortunately, as health systems have prioritised care for COVID patients, hospitals and clinics have struggled to provide essential health services that women depend on for their health and well being.”

PAHO reports there were over 1.2 million new COVID cases in the region last week and 31,000 deaths.

These figures, the director said, have remained unchanged over the last weeks, underscoring a worrying trend that cases and deaths are plateauing at alarmingly high levels.

“Last week, four out of five of the countries reporting the highest number of new infections were here in our region, and Latin American countries represented the top five highest mortality rates worldwide,” she said.

“In the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago has declared a national emergency following the recent COVID outbreak. In the meantime, Cuba continues to report significant new infections, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are still seeing spikes after recent volcanic eruptions resulted in people being moved to shelters. We are also concerned about increasing trends in hospitalisations in Haiti.”

Sadly, Dr Etienne said, despite persistently high infections, many people and places are no longer adhering to public health measures known to be effective against COVID. New figures, she said, suggest that health officials may not yet know the full impact of this pandemic.