Ministry of Health warns that the guard should not be lowered in the face of omicron BA.2 variant of the coronavirus

Claudia Cuéllar, Director (e) of Epidemiology and Demography at the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, gave an overview of the epidemiological situation in the country against Sars-Cov2 and its variants, during the Unified Command Post 125.

Since the end of December 2021, the omicron variant is the predominant variant in the national territory, which caused the fourth peak. However, there is a sublineage of this variant before which one should not let down one's guard.

“We must bear in mind that this BA.2 sublineage should continue to be considered a variant of concern and that is why the World Health Organization recommends that close monitoring of the sublineage be maintained; as the National Institute of Health has been doing very well in its genomic surveillance, which is part of the monitoring of this variant of omicron”, said Cuellar.

Likewise, it urged the territorial public health authorities to continue the specific monitoring of the BA.2 sublineage, report sequences and carry out analyses of the different sublineages of the omicron variant.

He noted that “here in Colombia we have BA.1, there are very few BA.2 and we don't have the third sublinage identified, until now”.

As for the national outlook, which has been stable for several weeks, the official indicated that there is still evidence of how this fourth peak has been steadily decreasing.

But, he clarified that, “that does not mean that we are somehow okay, but that we are still in a pandemic, we are in a situation in which we must continue to take care of ourselves to continue to maintain this sustained decline.”

And he concluded by reiterating the importance of the special care that must be taken with the group over 60 years of age, despite the flexibilities in some measures to control the pandemic, as well as with people with comorbidities or who have any risk factors, even if positivity is in sharp decline.

In Colombia, about 300 thousand doses of the vaccine against covid-19 are being applied daily

March 26, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection reported that after a drop in the number of vaccines applied in the national territory in the last three weeks, about 300 thousand doses of the vaccine against covid-19 are again being applied daily.

In the development of the Unified Command Post number 125, the Deputy Minister of Public Health and Service Delivery, Germán Escobar Morales, stressed that these results come after the adjustments that have been made to the National Immunization Plan.

This recovery in the number of daily doses applied nationally “means that the country can still increase its rate of vaccination and that it is not a losing battle to continue pushing to maintain those daily levels of applications,” said Germán Escobar Morales.

Likewise, the official indicated that there is still a significant gap to close second doses or complete schedules. For this reason, he called on the secretariats of health of the municipalities to start implementing strategies in order to increase the number of people receiving biological medicine against covid-19, together with MinSalud.

“The call for the secretaries of Health is to continue the effort, and that they count on the Ministry of Health and Social Protection to differentially review vaccination in those municipalities that are lagging behind, to implement extramural strategies,” added the Deputy Minister of Public Health and Service Delivery.

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