By The Star Staff
State epidemiologist Melissa Marzán Rodríguez said Monday that Puerto Rico faces several types of respiratory illnesses that together are recognized as a “syndemic.”
“The epidemiological term when there is more than one outbreak affecting a population is syndemic. Syndemic is a scenario where there is more than one outbreak or more than one epidemic that affects a population and in Puerto Rico, for example, we can talk about a syndemic scenario because we have the COVID-19 pandemic, where it must be said that for today, in the last week we are seeing almost 1,500 daily cases,” Marzán said in a radio interview. “That raises the alert that we all have to be using the different prevention measures and with what has happened in the last two Decembers [2020 and 2021], cases have increased. COVID-19 is not over and we have influenza cases where we are above the alert threshold and the population that is most affected is the pediatric population.”
Regarding COVID-19, the island’s chief epidemiologist also noted that hospitalizations and related deaths have increased, in addition to cases of influenza and mycoplasma.
“In general terms [in regard to hospitalizations] it has remained at a moderate level,” she said. “If the metric becomes high, you have to resort to the use of masks.”
“For me it has always been a recommendation that the Department of Health continues to make,” Marzán said. “On the other hand, vaccination. In Puerto Rico there is the COVID-19 vaccine for the omicron variant with its different sublineages. If you belong to a risk group, people over 65, people with chronic conditions, obese or overweight, we call on you to go get vaccinated.”