In an interview with CNN, the public health physician and assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Jarbas Barbosa, warned of the risk of the emergence and transmission of new variants of the coronavirus among unvaccinated people in Europe.
European countries are increasingly tightening restrictions against Covid-19 as the number of new cases increases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already indicated that the arrival of winter on the continent could lead half a million people to die from the disease.
For Barbosa, doubts about vaccination is a phenomenon that has hit Europe hard and, according to him, because of two factors.
“In part, it’s because of people’s lack of knowledge [sobre os benefícios da vacina] and, also, because both the pandemic and the vaccination were very politicized, in the bad sense of the word. Certain political groups took the opposition to the vaccine as a defense of freedom and other arguments”, he said.
Therefore, the doctor said that a “paradox” was created in developed countries, which have large amounts of immunizations available, but many cannot exceed 65% of the population vaccinated for months.
“The worst thing is that in these countries there is no homogeneity in distribution. In Germany, for example, the Bavarian region has always been strongly opposed to vaccinations and public health measures”, pointed out Barbosa.
“In other words, this group of unvaccinated people is very concentrated and makes it easier for them to be a transmission accelerator when a new variant appears, such as Delta, which is already prevalent throughout the world.”
In response to this movement, the doctor stated that it is very important that countries have public health communication strategies to increase vaccine coverage equally among all regions of Europe.
See vaccination against Covid-19 in Brazil and worldwide
Reference: CNN Brasil
