Brazil, global epicenter of the pandemic COVID-19 fears lack of oxygen and medications in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) that are at the limit, while waiting for the arrival of the first batch of vaccines from the international program Covax, scheduled for this Sunday.
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The regional governors have warned about the possibility of a “collapse within the collapse” that the public health system is already experiencing, as a result of the explosion of infections that has hit the entire country at the same time.
The reason
The shortage, detected in some areas of Brazil, of substances used for patients with severe COVID-19 pictures. It is what is known as the “Intubation kit”, which includes oxygen, pain relievers, sedatives, and neuromuscular blockers, among other medications.
The problem lies in the increasing saturation of hospitals.
The ICUs of 25 of the 27 Brazilian states have an occupancy rate equal to or greater than 80% – in 15 states it is already 90% -, which has caused these vitally important medical supplies to become scarce.
Brazil accumulates to date close to 12 million positives and 293 thousand deaths from COVID-19, according to official data.
In the last five days it has added more than 2,400 daily deaths associated with the disease and the forecasts for the next few weeks do not point to an improvement, rather the opposite.
This week the National Front of Mayors, which groups together the Brazilian municipal leaders, warned that in at least 76 cities the oxygen reserves are close to being depleted.
The Attorney General’s Office also alerted the Ministry of Health that the Amazonian states of Acre and Rondonia, in the north, may begin to suffer shortages as of Wednesday of next week.
That fear became a reality last January in the state of Amazonas.
There it is estimated that at least 50 people died of asphyxia due to lack of oxygen, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, which opened an investigation into the alleged “omission” of the outgoing Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello in that crisis.
In other parts of the country, with a better sanitary structure, a priori, there have also been problems with the supply of oxygen.
In Sao Paulo, the Brazilian city worst hit in absolute numbers, with almost 600 thousand positives and more than 20 thousand deaths, a dozen patients were transferred this weekend to another hospital due to a delay in the delivery of oxygen cylinders by part of the responsible company.
In the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, the authorities reported the death of six people also due to “problems in the distribution of oxygen.”
In this framework, the National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil (Anvisa) has taken a series of measures to avoid greater evils, such as eliminating bureaucracies for the registration, distribution and import of these drugs, and authorizing that industrial cylinders can be filled with gas medicinal.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health continues in the process of transition since last Monday President Jair Bolsonaro, a denier about the danger of the virus, announced his fourth Minister of Health since the beginning of the pandemic, the cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga.
However, Queiroga has not yet officially assumed the portfolio, at a time when the country consecutively breaks its records of deaths and infections.
In addition, the magazine Crusoé published the day before that the future minister is charged in a criminal action for an alleged “crime against public property” by failing to collect, according to the report, the contributions to Social Security of the employees of a clinic private that he managed.
The vaccination campaign continues at a slow pace in this continental-sized country, with 212 million inhabitants, which has always been an example in successfully completing its immunization programs.
Vaccines against covid-19 began to be applied in mid-January and so far 5.5% of the population have received the first dose, and the second only 2%.
Given the difficulty to reach cruising speed, due in part to the shortage of immunizers, the Ministry of Health released this Sunday to the states and municipalities the administration of vaccines that were originally reserved for the second dose.
Pazuello said in a note that this measure will make it possible to “double” the vaccination rate starting next week.
In addition, this Sunday the first batch of vaccines from the Covax international program is scheduled to arrive at Guarulhos international airport in Sao Paulo. It will be a million doses of the drug AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, produced by a South Korean laboratory.
Before the end of March, another shipment with two million more doses from the same manufacturer is also expected to arrive.
With information from EFE
HAVJ
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