Ómicron: Bolivia rules out for now the closure of borders due to the new variant of the coronavirus

The Minister of Health of Bolivia, Jeyson Auza, ruled out this Thursday closing the country’s borders for now to prevent the entry of omicron, the new variant of covid-19 that already has cases reported in Brazil.

Auza said at a press conference that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) indicated that this new variant of covid-19 classified as “worrisome” requires further investigation to know its characteristics.

“At this time the closure of borders is not advised until the characteristics of this variant are determined,” said Auza.

He added that Bolivia will wait for the results of scientific studies on this variant to make “responsible and sound decisions.”

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Promotion, Epidemiological Surveillance and Traditional Medicine, María Renée Castro, reiterated to the population that it is necessary to reinforce biosafety measures such as the use of a mask and abide by social distancing.

For her part, the PAHO / WHO representative in Bolivia, Alma Morales, pointed out that so far it is not known exactly whether the omicron variant is more transmissible than the past variants or whether it increases lethality.

“Unfortunately, the countries have closed their borders, which is not recommended by WHO / PAHO or established in international health regulations,” Morales explained.

The representative continued by stating that closing the borders would be a kind of “punishment” for countries that are conducting “genomic surveillance” and that report “responsibly”.

“What each country must do is strengthen its genomic surveillance, strengthen its biosafety measures, increase its vaccination coverage,” Morales stressed.

He added that for now it is known of the omicron variant that “hospital demand has increased” and that young people are the ones who are getting sick, but that this may be due to the increase in cases worldwide from 8% to 10%.

Finally, he stressed that Bolivia has “a very successful response plan that has always been technically very aligned with the WHO recommendations.”

There are reports that the omicron variant is already circulating in Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, China, Spain, Italy, the United States, Israel, South Africa, among others.

This week the first cases identified in Brazil with this new variant were reported, the first in Latin America.

Countries such as Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Paraguay prohibited the entry of people who were in different countries of Africa.

Bolivia is currently continuing its vaccination plan that has already reached 4,109,745 people with the first dose, 3,187,345 with the second, 369,690 with the third, while 983,282 have the Janssen vaccine, which is a single dose.

The vaccinable population in the country exceeds seven million people, according to information from the Ministry of Health.

Bolivia accumulates 539,762 COVID-19 infections and 19,196 deaths, since the first cases were registered in March of last year.

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