Mental health: A global priority

Latin America has emerged from a new spike in the pandemic, and contagions and deaths have been very substantially reduced, with uneven vaccination coverage in the different countries of the region, programmes that began late due to lack of availability and poor access to them. We are now waiting to see how the pandemic courses, the variants of the virus and immunological coverage, as well as its transient nature.

In parallel to the physical effects of the virus, we are also witnessing the presence of mental and emotional disorders that triggered the need for care all over the world which could not be provided as all our actions focused on saving lives. Situations such as anxiety, depression, adaptive disorders, the bereavement process and suicidal behaviours are but some examples of these conditions.

Now, with the reduction in the number of cases and the possible transition from pandemic to endemic, the aforementioned effects on the population's mental health are compounded by the need for the mental rehabilitation of those who caught this infectious disease and have suffered its neuropsychological consequences.

The world's healthcare systems are now called upon to respond to the effect on the population's mental health through investment and political decisions geared towards building a society with better capabilities and skills for life.