Abstract: The global interest and concern over the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the attention of governments and international organisations away from urgent problems such as the climate crisis. In most international fora and meetings over the past year, attention has focused successively on medical care and hospital conversion, containment and, more recently, vaccines. The current emphasis on immunisations has been, if not the only, the predominant action, which does not correspond to the complexity of the determinants of the pandemic. This paper reviews critically the main factors that have caused the expectation that the focus on vaccines may not be matched by the expected results. It reviews a series of technical and political actions that, in addition to vaccines, should contribute to the control of the pandemic and, above all, create the conditions to prevent the emergence of new pandemics. From the perspective of the experience in Mexico, the challenges involved in vaccination against COVID-19 based on a mosaic of vaccines are reviewed, a situation similar to what will occur in other countries. In addition to vaccination, significant reduction of size and number of food animal farms and improvement of their biosecurity standards, accompanied by a profound reorientation of food consumption patterns are urged as the most important actions to prevent new pandemics and to reduce morbidity from diseases that have significantly increased the severity and mortality by COVID-19.

See whole article by Dr Marcos Arana Cedeño, Researcher at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubiran, Mexico. Director of the Training and Education Centre on Ecology and Health for Peasants (CCESC) / Coordinator of IBFAN Mexico.COVID-19-Linear-responses-April2021Download