Judith Pena | March 9, 2023
“Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the detection of the first case of Covid-19 in Panama and thanks to the actions taken by President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, Health Minister Luis Francisco Sucre and the entire health team, it can be said that we are in a frank reduction of the cases in our country”, expressed the general director of Public Health of the MINSA, Melva Cruz.
Cruz mentioned that the traceability measures made it possible to detect positive cases and follow up on their contacts, to provide them with timely treatment and save their lives.
“Biosecurity measures such as: the use of masks, physical distancing and isolation, were key factors in controlling the pandemic. The installed capacity in hospitals, thank God, never collapsed and all positive patients were attended to,” Cruz said.
Another strategy indicated Cruz, has been the mass vaccination process that allowed the reduction of cases and deaths; For this reason, today more than 90% of the deaths that are registered are people who have not received the vaccine or did not comply with the complete vaccination schedule, which shows that the vaccines are safe and effective.
Panama currently has the bivalent vaccine that further protects the population from this virus, which has not gone away, which is why MINSA calls on the population to continue vaccinating, Cruz reiterated.
Finally, he stated that all these actions since day one of the start of the pandemic have made it possible to make the use of the mask more flexible.
