It is a real slaughter. After breaking the record for the number of coronavirus deaths in one day several times this month, sadly set at 2,841 dead on March 16, Brazil continues to suffer in the face of the epidemic.
Oxygen reserves for artificial respiration of patients seriously affected by Covid-19 have reached “worrying” levels in six states of Brazil, where the pandemic is on the rise, the prosecution revealed in a statement on Tuesday.
“According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Health, the situation is the most worrying in six states: Acre and Rondonia (north-west), Mato Grosso (center-west), Amapa (north, border with French Guyana), Ceara and Rio Grande do Norte (northeast) ”, explained the prosecution.
In January, a dramatic oxygen shortage in Manaus (north), the largest metropolis in the Amazon region, caused dozens of deaths in saturated hospitals.
Oxygen on the black market
This city of 2.2 million inhabitants had been plunged into chaos, many people being forced to obtain oxygen cylinders on the black market to treat relatives at home.
In an attempt to prevent such a nightmare from happening again in other regions, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office organized a meeting earlier this week with representatives of the Ministry of Health and White Martins, one of the main suppliers of oxygen for domestic medical use.
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“This company is facing an exponential increase in demand, with increases of 300% in some regions,” said the prosecution in its press release.
On Monday, the state of Sao Paulo (south-east) announced that a medical oxygen manufacturing plant would be installed within ten days near Ribeirao Preto, in partnership with the beer giant Ambev. It will produce 125 cylinders per day, intended for overloaded hospitals in the region.
The government of this state, the most populous in Brazil with 46 million inhabitants, announced on Tuesday that it had recorded for the first time more than 1,000 deaths from Covid-19 in 24 hours.
The dead piled up in the corridors
According to a TV Globo count, more than 130 people have died from failing to get an intensive care bed in time in the same state of Sao Paulo.
And in Brasilia, more than 400 people are awaiting admission to intensive care. Videos circulating on social networks show bodies piled up in hospital corridors before their transfer to the morgue.
Tuesday morning, the new Minister of Health Marcelo Queiroga finally took office officially, according to several Brazilian media, more than a week after his appointment, during a discreet ceremony in Brasilia, without the presence of journalists.
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The ten-month record in the ministry of his predecessor, a soldier with no medical experience, General Eduardo Pazuello, has been widely criticized, as the country sinks into a health crisis out of control.
Brazil has been the country with the most daily deaths from Covid-19 for two weeks, with an average of over 2,000 deaths per day.
In absolute numbers, this country of 212 million inhabitants is the second most bereaved in the world, after the United States, with more than 295,000 dead.
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