MEP Sara Cerdas clarified, earlier this Wednesday night, the statements made about the hypothetical cases of coronavirus in Madeira, a topic that came up this week in the parliamentary debate that took place in the Legislative Assembly, when the regional secretary of Health, Pedro Ramos, said that “there were two or three situations” on the island, related to people from the Asian continent, namely one from Thailand and two from China who suspected themselves of having contracted the virus, but who never even got data as suspected cases by SESARAM.
Now, the socialist clarified to the DIARY, after the words spread to various media in Brussels, that she did not want to provoke alarmism about this situation, leaving the caveat that there are, to date, no suspected cases of coronavirus in the Madeira, given that they would have to have an epidemiological link.
It should be noted that the doctor, who is chairman of the Health Working Group in the European Parliament, has been working on the strategy and contingency plan in the old continent.
These were the statements of Sara Cerdas:
“I was fortunate to work in the Directorate-General for Health when I was in Portugal and I even worked at the Public Health Emergency Center, therefore, at the epicenter of outbreak management of this dimension. We have an articulated plan and, when we do, I am speaking in Portugal, as I have already been in talks with the Secretary of State for Health for these matters and not only, an articulated plan between the Ministry of Health, with its regional health administrations. Saúde, SESARAM and the Regional Health Service of the Azores, DGS, Ricardo Jorge Institute – for laboratory analysis -, and with INEM. So far, in Portugal the suspected cases have turned out to be negative, but it is taking all necessary measures to prevent this outbreak. On the part of Madeira, I know that there have been some training courses for professionals and there has also been an action to respond to this outbreak, in terms of preparation. I saw yesterday [terça-feira], in the debate in the Assembly of Madeira, which we followed here when there was time, that there were two or three suspected cases of coronavirus, but that nothing was disclosed. It is important to understand what type of cases they were and whether they had any type of important epidemiological link and these issues must be disseminated by the competent authorities, right? Madeira, SESARAM has the regional health authority, but it always has to report to the national health authority, in this case in the person of Dr. Graça Freitas, the general director of Health. I don’t know if there was communication, but if there was no it’s serious”.
– .
