COVID-19 Pandemic in Latin America

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, Latin America accounts for 8.2% of global population but has experienced a disproportionate 20% of Covid infections and a third of global deaths. The response to Covid has varied enormously within Latin America. In Brazil, the laissez-faire attitude of the Government left everything to a devolved health system, and they actively refused to take any central responsibility or leadership, with President Bolsonaro dismissing Covid as just “a little flu”. This has resulted in Brazil suffering the worst rates of death and infection in the whole of Latin America.

By contrast, Uruguay saw the most effective response by miles, ramping up the test, trace and track systems, avoiding lockdowns and school closures, and achieving some of the lowest infection and death figures in the world—although, during 2021, the beta variant from Brazil has now increased infection rates among young people in particular. I am aware that funding from the UK embassy in Montevideo has helped to fund genomic surveillance and public health monitoring. Is that funding still in place, and could it be replicated in other countries of the region? In El Salvador, the borders were closed quickly, and quarantine was enforced by the police and the military. Containment centres were also set up quickly but proved to be ineffective at infection control because shared accommodation became a vector for spreading the disease. In Panama, it was hoped that transmission rates would be reduced by allowing people out to pharmacies and supermarkets by sex: women one day and men the next. This has been monitored by Google tracking people’s phones. There are no reliable data on whether it was effective, although the infection rate appears to have declined.

But the Covid factor that is characteristic across the region is the way in which the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities. Corruption over the acquisition of ventilators has been notable in Bolivia. In Colombia, there was a 103% increase in domestic violence between March and December 2020. Some 21% of Latin America’s urban population live in slums, informal settlements or precarious housing, where overcrowding and the lack of services are some of the factors that help to spread disease. You cannot be two metres away from someone if your house is only two metres square and for multiple generations.

In Colombia and elsewhere there was already very limited access to healthcare and basic services such as clean drinking water and soap in poor and rural areas, making simple Covid measures such as handwashing very difficult, if not impossible. Similarly, in Peru, the pandemic has exposed chronic weaknesses in the public health system, especially in rural areas such as the Amazon region. The poorest in the population found it hardest to comply with lockdown and social distancing because they rely on daily wages in the informal economy and could not afford not to work, even if they risked infection or knew they were infected. These pressures fall most heavily on women, indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians and peasant farmers. The number of Colombians living in extreme poverty grew by 3.5 million in 2020 alone, and the UN added Colombia to its list of so-called hunger hotspots.

In Peru, too, a further 3.3 million people now live in poverty as a direct result of Covid. Around 2 million lost their jobs, the economy shrank by 11%, and average wages for those with jobs fell by a quarter. Has any audit been done on how the cuts in our overseas development aid spending will affect programmes we have been funding in Latin America to improve health systems and inequalities? In light of the devastating impact of Covid, will the Government consider restoring such funding?

Inequalities have also surfaced in relation to vaccines. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru all participated in clinical trials or storage in exchange for access to the products. Vaccines have been procured through agreements with pharmaceutical firms and through the COVAX scheme. But factors such as purchasing power, population size, delivery infrastructure and political will mean it will take years for vaccination at population level to be achieved—in Paraguay, for example, it will not be until 2024. Is the level of vaccines signed up for under COVAX—which I believe was to get 2 billion doses to the region by the end of 2021—actually on target?

I have two other vaccine-related questions. First, what is the Government’s position on the protection by patents of the intellectual property of the vaccines? There is a WTO waiver for public health emergencies, which was activated for antiretroviral drugs during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Could this be helpful for getting Covid vaccines to Latin America, as well as better technology transfer and support for domestic producers?

Secondly, there is the question of which vaccines are being used. Brazil has AstraZeneca but has also been using Russian and Chinese-produced vaccines which are not approved by the WHO. The main supply of Peru and other countries has been the Chinese Sinopharm. Has any assessment has been made of the restrictions on travel for those with unapproved vaccinations or unrecognised vaccine programmes in relation to the UK’s business relationship with some of our major trading partners in Latin America? Would it be in our own enlightened self-interest to do more to share approved vaccines so that trade, and indeed cultural and educational travel and exchanges, will not be impeded?

Finally, but no less importantly, I want to touch on the impact of Covid on security, crime and human rights in the region. The cumulative impact of Covid has led to widespread civil disruption and riots in some parts of the region. In Colombia in April this year, mass social protests met with horrendous police brutality. Armed groups took advantage of lockdown to terrorise and control communities, including the killing of 177 human rights defenders in 2020 alone. I know that the Government take the UK’s role as the penholder for Colombia at the Security Council seriously, and I would like to know what the Minister thinks can be done to make sure that the peace accord in Colombia will not be destroyed altogether by Covid and its ramifications.

Equally disturbing is the spike in murders and violence generally, including sexual violence, in Mexico. Organised crime appears to have been helped by Covid restrictions. Although lockdown put fewer people on the streets, reducing the demand for drugs and the capacity to smuggle drugs to the US, this led to drug cartels competing more aggressively for business, including by securing allegiance from isolated communities by offering food and medical supplies to establish control in return for their allegiance.

Does the Minister agree that it is in the UK’s economic, diplomatic and security interests for us to be much more proactive? Latin America got just two brief paragraphs in the recent integrated review. Surely the impact of Covid illustrates that a greater level of attention and engagement is needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

And trade unionists, of course. While these are the result of criminality within that country—a legacy, perhaps, of some of the difficulties that are beginning to subside, but nevertheless have really wracked Colombia for some time—these are not the consequences of malignant action by government. I raised this issue when I spoke to President Duque a week or so ago and it was very clear to me that he and his Government are doing what they can to get to grips with the issues that the noble Baroness raised so well. Although it is not entirely clear how we can help, certainly the offer from the UK is on the table to provide what support we can to enable the Government to get to grips with the problem, which is clearly tragic on so many levels. My colleagues and I raise these issues on a regular basis, but I believe that by supporting some of the initiatives that I hinted at earlier, albeit briefly, we have an opportunity in the UK to provide very meaningful support to the Government of Colombia in strengthening and extending and making that peace process endure.

On that note, I thank noble Lords for their contributions—

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, will he undertake to write to me with answers to the few questions I asked that he has not been able to cover in his reply?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I do apologise: I thought I had left this debate with a clean sheet, but I clearly have not, so I undertake to scan the record tomorrow and to respond to any questions from the noble Baroness that remain unanswered. I pay tribute to her for her speech, for initiating this debate and for her work in the region.