COVID RESPONSE IN PERU AND ARGENTINA: Dysfunctional Healthcare Systems and Management

Recently, the Institute for the Advanced Studies of the Americas (https://mia.as.miami.edu/) at the University of Miami held a revealing webinar with the participation and cogent presentations of former ministers of health of Peru and Argentina. The two ex-ministers know the internal weakness of the healthcare systems in their countries, and themselves had participated in attempts to make reforms.

There are several takeaways from the event:

• Both Peru and Argentina have the highest rates of infection in Latin America along with Brazil.
• Before even the COVID pandemic hit Peru and Argentine, the healthcare systems were dysfunctional and inaccessible.
• Peru was late in acquiring internationally a low cost testing kit that failed and, therefore, the people didn’t know if they had COVID. Argentina was late in organizing testing.
• The underlying situation in Argentina and Peru was one of great income, social and regional inequality that had the effect of separating a large share of the population from good healthcare and protection from the COVID.