A study in Open Forum Infectious Diseases in September 2024 estimates the number of deaths averted through vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LAC) during the first year and a half of vaccination efforts. The study spans January 2021 to May 2022 and includes 17 countries in LAC. The authors estimate that vaccination efforts resulted in between 610,000 and 2.61 million deaths averted. Their findings “underscore the substantial impact of timely and widespread vaccination” and provide “crucial support” for vaccination programmes against epidemic infectious diseases and future pandemics.
Rapid response
WHO’s declaration of a global pandemic in March 2020 prompted the development and implementation of “control and mitigation plans” around the world. Despite these efforts, COVID-19 caused “substantial health and socioeconomic losses and significant mortality”; more than 7 million deaths due to COVID-19 were reported since 1st January 2020. Countries in the Americas were “among the hardest hit by the pandemic”, with approximately 43% of all reported COVID-19 deaths reported from the region by 2023. By spring of 2023, South America experienced 1.35 million COVID-19 deaths.
Vaccines against COVID-19 became available for use in Latin America and the Caribbean in early 2021. In July 2021, eight COVID-19 vaccines had received Emergency Use Listing (EUL) through WHO pre-qualification. This increased to 15 by May 2023, with others under assessment for pre-qualification.
“The rapid deployment of vaccines has been proven critical to halt the pandemic’s toll in the region.”
PAHO’s Revolving Fund enabled many countries to access vaccines. In LAC countries, 82% of the population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by spring 2023. However, “wide inter- and intra-country variation in access and availability” were identified in the region.
The study
The researchers sought to estimate the number of COVID-19 deaths averted through vaccination in selected countries of the LAC region during the pandemic. They used existing data on reported deaths and vaccination coverage from 17 countries in the region during the period from vaccine introduction in each country to May 2022. The countries selected were Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Other countries in the region were excluded due to missing data. The analysis considered adults over 18, stratified by age (18-59 and 60+).
1.05 million COVID-19 deaths were reported in 17 countries considered between the start of vaccination, which ranged by country from December 2020 to March 2021, to May 2022. The analysis accounts for underreporting to assume that there were likely 1.49 million COVID-19 deaths in these countries during this time. The model estimates that, without vaccination and assuming medium vaccine effectiveness, there would have been 2.67 million deaths during this period. This means that an estimated 1.18 million deaths were averted by vaccination; the estimate ranges between 610,000 deaths averted with low vaccine effectiveness and 2.62 million deaths averted with high vaccine effectiveness.
“Overall, our model estimates that approximately 273 (142-607) deaths were averted per 100,000 people in LAC.”
The authors believe that this study is the first multi-country study to evaluate the effect that vaccination had on COVID-19 deaths in the LAC region, estimating up to 2.6 million deaths averted. As LAC countries faced “various challenges” in implementing their vaccination campaigns, the study can “help inform policy and decision-makers of the outcome of these campaigns”. Future research is needed to provide in-depth analyses of countries to assess differences in vaccine effectiveness by specific region or population group and evaluation of potential alternative vaccination scenarios.
“Despite the many challenges to COVID-19 vaccination in LAC – including timely access to vaccines, varying vaccine products and schedules, evolving circulating variants, and shifting vaccination strategies and target groups – these findings underscore the substantial impact of timely and widespread vaccination in averting COVID-19 deaths.”
At the Congress in Barcelona this October we will hear from a panel of experts on how we can establish a “sustainable vaccine production ecosystem” in Latin America, with implications for future vaccination strategies. Get your tickets here to join us for this session, and don’t forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletters here.
