By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT
tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net
A PAN American Health Organisation official has raised the alarm about the “unprecedented” use of antimicrobials during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can lead to a rise in drug resistant infections.
PAHO Director Dr Carissa Etienne made the remarks at PAHO’s webinar this week.
“As we continue to push to get the region immunised, today I want to call your attention to a very important consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr Etienne said. “Throughout this pandemic, we’ve seen the use of antimicrobials rise at unprecedented levels, with potentially serious consequences for years to come.
“Data from hospital settings in the region shows that 90-100 percent of hospitalised patients were given an antimicrobial as part of their COVID treatment, while only seven percent of these patients had a secondary infection that required the use of these drugs.
“Antimicrobials are crucial life-saving drugs, but they must be used responsibly since bacteria can develop resistance and render these drugs ineffective over time.”
Dr Etienne said across the region, several countries are reporting surges in detection of drug-resistant infections that have likely contributed to the rise in mortality during the pandemic in hospitalised patients.
“Let’s not forget that health facilities have been overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. “Many ICUs operated at two to three times their capacity.
“A rise in the use of invasive procedures such as intubation or ventilation, the use of antimicrobials and other drugs, overcrowding and underlying conditions such as diabetes or obesity increased the risks for patients for bacterial and fungal infections.
“Limited availability of gloves and gowns and changes in cleaning and disinfection practices were other factors that led to infections spreading more quickly.”
She said antimicrobials have also been misused outside of hospital settings. And, drugs such as Ivermectin, Azithromycin and Chloroquine were broadly used as unproven treatments, even after PAHO had strong evidence that they had no benefit to COVID patients.
She also had good news, saying there has been a five percent decrease in COVID-19 cases and a 17 percent reduction in related deaths in the region.
PAHO reports that over the past week, there were nearly 760,000 new COVID cases and 12,800 COVID-related deaths reported in the region.
Dr Etienne acknowledged weeks of a COVID-19 declining trend.
“We have seen a five percent decrease in new cases in the region of the Americas over the previous week, and a 17 percent decrease in new deaths,” Dr Etienne said.
Although there was good news of a regional drop in cases, Dr Etienne also said some Caribbean countries are still experiencing rises in COVID-19 infections.
“In the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic and Barbados continue to report a steady rise in new infections,” she said. “The Cayman Islands is experiencing its highest incidence of COVID infections to date and two thirds of these cases are among the unvaccinated.
“Meanwhile Trinidad and Tobago is witnessing a sharp rise in COVID deaths as ICU beds fill with COVID patients. But countries across Central and South America are seeing a decline in new infections, except for Bolivia, which continues to experience rising cases.”
Dr Etienne said it bears repeating that the COVID pandemic is still very active in our region and no country should let its guard down due to current low numbers.
“As we near the holiday season, we remind everyone that it’s up to all of us to keep each other safe by getting vaccinated and following the public health measures that have proven effective against this virus, like social distancing and mask wearing,” she said.
“Today, we have reached an important milestone: half of people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And, nearly 3.5 million COVID vaccine doses are due to arrive in our region this week, helping us reach even more people. But many countries remain far behind.”
Comments
ohdrap4 3 years ago
What about multiple doses of waning vaccines? Ah, she does not know.
Will someone please vote her our of office?
And this is not a threat to Covid patients.
Should read : threat to ivermectin users.
The article writer is intellectually dishonest.
By the same token, mass vaccination during a pandemic creates variants.
Twocent 3 years ago
The above comment is right on target. Beware of honey mixed with poison! A vaccine promotion for a vaccine that neither stops infection nor stops transmission is like an antibiotic overuse! It creates resistance! So why contradict yourself in a public statement? The so-called “experts” give us facts and then introduce the propaganda/poison they want us to swallow. It’s either that or we have to conclude that their ability to reason and use logic is severely impaired. Either way, trusting the authorities and experts has to be balanced by questioning, researching truth, and using common sense. You don’t have to be an epidemiologist to understand the use of hypocrisy, contradiction, disinformation, and outright lies and propaganda. Motives and agendas are not conspiracies unless they are being hidden and mixed with truths. Evil motives and and agendas, aka conspiracies, use that mode of operation, as we learned from our history lessons. November is veteran’s remembrance month….let’s not forget those who faight against the evil conspiracies that are, in effect, a war against people’s God given freedoms and rights!
jamesg30 3 years ago
Hello Onecent. You have no idea what you are talking about. Vaccines do not cause resistant strains of virus. People who get the virus, especially those that are not vaccinated and carry a huge viral load on their bodies, are the soup for the next variant. Your chitter chatter and talking like you are some expert is dangerous and wrong. You talk about conspiracies and protecting people from them? you are part of the problem. People. Get vaccinated and don't take antibiotics for a virus. Also don't drink bleach or take de-wormer. Onecent. Halfcent should be your name.
carltonr61 3 years ago
B3, Build Back Better elites global agenda is in full swing. WHO has banned to date Sputnik V which has zero side effects preferring to watch millions die in order to ensure profits for their playmates. Someone by accident came across vials marked Smallpox intended for human inoculations according to CDC. Gates said the current vaccines being used don't prevent Covid transmissions so I guess his funded WHO/PAHO did not get the memo. They are still pushing the vaccination narrative though it does not protect allows transmissions to both vaccinated and unvaccinated. Science would forbid vaccinations.But the global elites have an agenda script to continue jabbing the world set at Davos in stone. B3 agenda to smash the post industrial revolution with a technology revolution minus Earthlings who they deem virus to the planet. Check Amazon guy on who should be allowed to live on Earth as they rebuild The Tower Of Babel. Why is the computer guy pushing test tube beef protein as better?
carltonr61 3 years ago
The save the Earth Pandemicites used the computer genius artificial intellectual that showed human activity as a virus while another algorithm AI set net zero humans as solution. Arguably humans have stressed species out of existence.
carltonr61 3 years ago
Curious though that PAHO has not given a solution for not cleaning hands with antibacterial, guess it slowed the flu too much. This us The Bahamas' normal respiratory illness weather season till March 2022.
bahamianson 3 years ago
No such thing as an expert. It is a miss used word used only to manipulate the listener. The doctor's opinion is such, that is all, nothing more, nothing less. Go get a room of so called experts and you will generally notice that 50% will agree and 50% will disagree on any given topic. So, it just depends on which side of the room you choose to listen to. Remember, it was and still is, medical practice. Practice being the operative word. Physicians are still practising on us.
CoolCatBD 3 years ago
We need to stop talking about, "Ivermectin, Azithromycin and Chloroquine". The next step is (Animals Reservoirs) pets, Dogs, Cats, … , farm animals, Pigs, Goats, …, these animals are unclean and are "super spreader". I for one do not trust Dolphins either!!! Even if we are 100% vaccinated, C19 can hide in unclean Animals Reservoirs.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
Dogs need 19 doses of the vacvine. The Chinese started killing pet dogs of people who gp in the hospital.
sheeprunner12 3 years ago
These so-called PAHO experts and most clinical doctors continue to bad mouth the cheap pills or cultural herbal cures for Covid that is used in the poor countries........ Why?
Is it that they are pressured to use the white man's vaccines and ventilators???
Time will tell who has the truth ......
CoolCatBD 3 years ago
Vitamin D, inaction. COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGug3r…
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
There is no "cure" for COVID. Like all viruses it runs its' course. The aloe and cerasee ease symptoms when a patient experiences mild symptoms. For patients with severe COVID the herbal treatments are useless.
As to the white mans ventilators, at the start of the pandemic when the obvious symptom was difficulty breathing, the pervasive treatment was ventilation to help with breathing. I am told that some machines are less invasive than others but in all cases if you adjust settings incorrectly you could cause lung collapse and kill patients. I think alot of that happened in the early days when you consider medical staff with no training in ventilator management were asked to manage ventilators due to high volumes of patients. Because management is not just a matter of adjusting knobs, it requires a fundamental understanding of pathology, recognizing what is currently happening in the patients body and how the machine should be adjusted for a good outcome. If you just know how to adjust knobs... dead patient. again, my interpretation of what I was told.
jt 3 years ago
Thank you. Finally a doctor weighs in who truly understands the development of life-saving ventilators as a weapon to further white supremacy.
Do you even read what you write? I think your knobs need adjusting.
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
lol. I think I stated quite clearly that this was "my interpretation of what I was told". So youre the one who didnt read what I wrote. I was given the info quite early in the pandemic, the individual felt that an unusually high number of persons were dying. Interestingky tgey also said, weve been treating this type of response fir years, they called it multi system failure or something to that effect. They said you dont try to treat the virus, you treat symptoms. They turned out to be 100% correct AND this is a Bahamian. And guess what @jt? Months after I was given the info, an msnbc report stated that an INDEPENDENT panel of medical professionals came TO THE SAME CONCLUSION. That is, ventilator misuse had likely contributed to deaths. You can apologize
CoolCatBD 3 years ago
Vitamin D levels advised. (Deficiency of vit D limits the performance of systems resulting in, increased spread of diseases of civilization)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5g9AVq…
carltonr61 3 years ago
EU NATO are on script five. All unvaccinated are locked in in some nations like Austria. Even bans on churches is looming.
tribanon 3 years ago
There's much I could say here to no avail of those who have allowed themselves to be used in a most sinister and evil experiment targeted at all of mankind for both financial greed and population control purposes. And the targeting of children is frankly most unforgiveable.
JokeyJack 3 years ago
Yes. Parents offering their children up as Guinea pigs. I guess with food prices going up they have no choice.
carltonr61 3 years ago
Ha ha. Some of us writers with international reach seems to have been threatened by greatest health authority for unspecified punishment. It has gotten scary.
https://www.rt.com/usa/540773-nih-vacci…
TalRussell 3 years ago
Hopefully, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa Etienne can find comfort in my sharing how my neighbour my immediate east says he had dream vision how Jesus is planning to come and straighten out some of the exactly same things in areas posing threat popoulaces health such as comrade sister Carissa Etienne has reference highlighted.
He just needs a little more time weighing His options, looking over calendar is checking on weather, mail-boat schedules choosing which out island visit and on availability hotel room and everything else like this and that is all-inclusive meals.
My neighbour Yisrael says, just be everyone patient, He soon arrive! ― Yes?
jamesg30 3 years ago
All you whack jobs on this site, get vaccinated. Or don't and let us know how you are doing in a year.
joeblow 3 years ago
... if you were even marginally inclined to understand science, you would know that the mRNA shots are NOT vaccines. Secondly, rates of covid and hospitalizations amongst the "vaccinated" is increasing in the US at this time. Studies out of Israel have shown that "unvaccinated" people who had covid have a 13x greater response to delta variant and future covid infections than those who have been "vaccinated" ( which means naturral immunity is more robust than that created by the shots) and further that natural immunity lasts at least one year (which is longer than the shots being given). This means that antibody testing is the most sensible thing to do BEFORE advising people to take a covid shot, but that is not being done. Lastly, when people do not get booster shots their risk of getting covid increases 2x. But since you are pushing "vaccinations" for a virus with a mortality of less than 2% in adults and 0.0001% in children, you would know these things already!
sheeprunner12 3 years ago
JoeBlow, I agree with you. The newly minted Fellow Nikkiah Forbes should come clean and explain that to Bahamians, instead of jabbing everyone blindly.
But this Covid & vaccine thing is shaping up to be the biggest scam in world's history ...... Why?????
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
Agree,
something is very very wrong with our interpretation of the data. Only 20000 of us have been diagnosed as infected. That includes both persons who were contacts and had no symptoms along with persons who had severe symptoms. So what is it about the severe cases that made them susceptible? Age? Well not all elderly died. Obesity? 60% of us are obese. So while a factor, there's something else there...and while vaccination may protect the vulnerable, its patently clear, not everyone requires it, not even for the highly infectious deadly delta variant. So what is it? These are the types of initiatives we should be behind, real "thought" exercises, not global follow the leader
jamesg30 3 years ago
JoeBlow and Sheeprunner you keep practicing your Obeah while the rest of us rely on science. Best of luck to you. Please check in with all of us in a year and be in the largest unvaccinated crowds you can find between now and then.
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
Actually your vaccination immunity will most likely have run out by next year. But its very clear that the scientists are only encouraging the vulnerable to get booster shots. Since our population has a very low vaccination rate, it cant be the vaccinations that have caused the decrease in cases, it has to be natural immunity. The delta has noone left to infect (well... not many) When the next variant comes around that we've never encountered, everybody will most likely be at zero immunity again, just as we were for delta
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
April 2020 nytimes.com
"HEALTH COVID-19 WHY VENTILATORS MAY NOT BE WORKING AS WELL FOR COVID-19 PATIENTS AS DOCTORS HOPED Why Ventilators May Not Be Working as Well for COVID-19 Patients as Doctors Hoped
BY JAMIE DUCHARME APRIL 16, 2020 7:00 AM EDT New York City emergency-medicine physician Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell sparked controversy when, two weeks ago, he posted a YouTube video claiming that ventilators may be harming COVID-19 patients more than they’re helping.
“We are operating under a medical paradigm that is untrue,” Kyle-Sidell warned. “I believe we are treating the wrong disease, and I fear that this misguided treatment will lead to a tremendous amount of harm to a great number of people in a very short time.”
Weeks later, claims from Kyle-Sidell and like-minded doctors continue to spark impassioned debate within the medical community, with some doctors moving away from the use of ventilators and others defending the current standard of care. What’s clear, though, is COVID-19 patients on ventilators aren’t doing as well as doctors would hope—and health care experts are scrambling to fix it.
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
There was another article that went into some explanation of what Kyle-Sidell postulated, it said for reasons yet unknown (at time), COVID patients appeared to be able to tolerate lower blood oxygen levels than patients with other diagnoses requiring ventilation. The article said COVID patients would come in talking and smiling with blood oxygen levels signalling they should be unconscious. The doctors in that article also moved away from ventilator use as primary treatment and targeted less invasive techniques such was placing the patient on their stomach to raise oxygen levels according to the article
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