Publication: Disruption of Health Care Services and COVID-19 Vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean by Mid-2021
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2022-11
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2022-11-14
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Vaccination has constituted the most effective response to save lives and reactivate economies and societies. By October 19th, 2022, almost 1,300 million Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine doses had been administered in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). However, lingering gaps in achieving target vaccination levels throughout the region are especially concerning as new SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge. At the regional level, Chile and Cuba were ahead with almost 91 and 89 percent of the population having completed their initial vaccination protocol, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, Jamaica and Haiti lagged the rest of the region, with only 26 percent and 2 percent of their populations vaccinated, respectively. The 2021 high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) provide insight into these issues by taking the pulse of household health care needs and barriers to access a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information from the first wave of the 2021 HFPS, this note aims to present an overview of the disruption of health care services, the need for preventive and non-preventive health care services, and the status of COVID-19 vaccinations.
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“World Bank; United Nations Development Programme. 2022. Disruption of Health Care Services and COVID-19 Vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean by Mid-2021. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38307 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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