Former coordinator of the National Immunization Program (PNI), epidemiologist Carla Domingues said in an interview with CNN this Monday (29) that the closing of borders is not an effective way to combat the Ômicron strain, discovered last week in southern Africa and which was classified as “worrying” by the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the doctor, the decision to ban flights originating from or passing through six African countries does not prevent the “cycles of the pandemic”. “Closing airports will not resolve the entry of new strains into countries. What we need to guarantee is vaccination. This is the big key to preventing the spread of the disease. Otherwise, we will continue to live these cycles.”
“As long as we do not have equitable and homogeneous vaccination in the world, it is no use having high vaccination coverage in a group and having a continent like Africa with 10% coverage, because if not, we will provide conditions for new strains to circulate, strains that vaccines don’t work”, he added.
For the epidemiologist, it is important that richer countries with greater advances in vaccine coverage help nations in difficulty. According to WHO, only 0.6% of doses worldwide were destined for low-income countries, mainly in Africa.
Faced with the threat of the new variant, Domingues said that the moment is of alert and that preventive measures must be prolonged.
“It doesn’t make sense that we are talking about agglomeration in large events when we may have the risk of having an important dissemination of this strain in our country. It is necessary to go back to wearing a mask, to have control of social distancing, because these are effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease.”
This Monday morning (29), the mayor of Salvador, Bruno Reis (DEM), announced the cancellation of the New Year’s Eve party in the capital of Bahia, alleging lack of sanitary security.
Reference: CNN Brasil
