The Rockefeller Foundation announced the launch of the Global Vaccination Initiative, a $55 million investment over two years to support country-led efforts to fully vaccinate 90% of the most at-risk populations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Negotiations on boosting the World Health Organization’s budget to help it prepare for future pandemics made mixed progress last week, with Washington withdrawing criticism but other donors voicing opposition, sources involved in the talks told Reuters.

COVID-19 infections are reaching new peaks in the Americas with 7.2 million new cases and more than 15,000 COVID-related deaths in the last week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on January 19.

The spread of COVID-19 in the Americas driven by the Omicron variant of the virus reached levels of transmission never before seen during the pandemic, with cases doubling to 6.1 million over the past week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on January 12.

Tugarê Group, one of Latin America’s premier healthcare advertising agency groups, announced the launch of Competitive Edge Digital Studio, the world’s first cost-effective production studio purpose-built for the healthcare communications industry. The company is poised to meet the demand for high quality, specialized digital content for small to medium-size agencies throughout North America and Europe delivered at significantly competitive prices. 

Many countries are expanding Covid-19 vaccine booster programs or shortening the gap between shots as governments scramble to shore up protection against the new Omicron variant which emerged during November in southern Africa and Hong Kong.

The number of new Covid-19 infections dropped during the past month throughout the Americas, even though only 37 percent of the people in Latin America and the Caribbean are fully vaccinated, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Oct. 6.

Cases of Covid-19 are declining in North America, but in most of Latin America and the Caribbean the end to the coronavirus pandemic “remains a distant future”, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) director Carissa Etienne said on June 30.

The White House laid out a plan to share 55 million U.S. Covid-19 vaccine doses globally, with roughly 75 percent of the doses allocated to Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program.

Coronavirus-related deaths worldwide passed a grim milestone of 4 million on June 17, according to a Reuters tally, as many countries struggle to procure enough vaccines to inoculate their populations.