Do the governments of Latin America have plans against the Coronavirus Pandemic?

Over the past week, six countries in Latin America have begun to report cases of coronavirus (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Paraguay). This means that there are now ten countries in the region with reported cases. The trend in European countries, especially Italy, Spain, Germany, France, indicates that the number of cases will increase significantly in the coming weeks. In those countries where no cases have been reported, it is very likely that they will begin to be diagnosed soon.

The likelihood of transmission spreading throughout the region is quite high. The question, therefore, is rather whether public health authorities are in the best position to deal with the transmission of the coronavirus. Since the first cases appeared in China at the end of last year, and especially since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency, the importance of health authorities preparing coronavirus contingency plans has been stressed. According to documents produced by WHO, these plans should be drawn up before the first cases of coronavirus infection occur.

Contingency plans of this nature, to face an unprecedented infection must have two basic characteristics. The first is that they must be adapted to the specific conditions of health service provision, that is, they must contain a detailed inventory of the resources available, and estimate the probable impact of coronavirus transmission, assuming various scenarios depending on the evolution already known in other countries. The second characteristic is to detail the requirements, in terms of human resources, inputs, and beds for different types of hospitalization, among other aspects. Without these characteristics, the plans may end up being a detailed list of processes with no major content to deal flexibly and adequately with the coronavirus epidemic. These plans must also be in the public domain, in order to facilitate information from all governmental and non-governmental bodies that interact in the control of the epidemic. And finally, the development of these plans is the requirement for requesting additional resources from legislative bodies, or making the required changes in the public budget.

Ideally, by now, all countries in the region should have these contingency plans in place. They should also be posted on the respective websites of the region’s ministries of health. The time since the outbreak of the epidemic in China has been long enough to make these plans. This is the “window of opportunity” repeatedly mentioned by Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director of WHO.

To this end, the websites of 16 ministries of health in the region were examined (in four countries the websites were not available). Only five countries were found to have a document entitled a plan to deal with the coronavirus or similar (Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Panama and Paraguay). However, none of these documents mentioned the current situation and the foreseeable impact that the coronavirus epidemic could have on the demand for health services. Nor is there any estimate of additional budgetary resources. Only in Guatemala is there any mention of the inventory of human resources and services, but no estimate of foreseeable variations.

The conclusion is quite straightforward. The countries will face the epidemic in a reactive manner, without the flexibility and follow-up mechanisms required in the execution of a good plan, and without the additional, well-estimated resources. Hopefully, such documents do exist, but they are not posted on the websites of ministries. Despite the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, the knowledge to address it is available worldwide, and the experience of other countries shows that it is possible. But to be successful, and to avoid as many cases and deaths as possible, a good plan is needed. As with so many public problems, it ends up being the big one missing. In this case, it may be an absence with very regrettable consequences for the citizens of Latin America.

Published in Spanish on March 11, 2020. See:https://marinojgonzalez.blogspot.com/2020/03/tienen-los-gobiernos-de-america-latina.html