Brazil Covid-19: City in the state of Sao Paulo, says it can be forced to remove patients from ventilators as cases increase nationwide

Coronavirus cases are on the rise in Brazil, and the country’s healthcare systems are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. In almost every state in Brazil, the occupancy rate in intensive care units (ICUs) is at or above 80%. Some of them had 90% or more, and some exceeded the occupancy rate of 100%, forcing them to turn away some patients.

Heads of state, mayors of the city and local medical staff now say their supplies are running out to treat even the Covid-19 patients who have received precious ICU beds. Supplies of drugs that facilitate intubation could disappear in the next two weeks, according to a report by the National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries. And the Brazilian National Association of Private Hospitals (ANAHP) has predicted that by Monday, private hospitals will no longer have medicines needed to intubate Covid-19 patients.

Mayor Felipe Augusto this weekend in the coastal town of Sao Sebastiao, in the state of Sao Paulo, turned to public appeals for more supplies from the state government.

“Our stock lasts until Monday and will only be used for patients who have already been incubated. The problem is that the lack of these drugs requires extubation – that is, you have to remove this patient who is in a serious and intubated condition and “a big risk,” the mayor told CNN subsidiary CNN Brasil on Saturday.
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Dr. Juan Lambert, head of Sao Sebastiao’s largest hospital, told CNN on Sunday that 10 Covid-19 patients were being intubated in his hospital, and that the state government had bought their time by sending a week’s supply after Augusto’s plea in the media. .

“Thank God, the secretariat has reached out and made us a priority in distributing supplies.” Lambert said.

But with the entire country striving for new cases, even the richest state in Brazil can not offer much more. On Saturday, the health department in Sao Paulo predicted that public supplies’ medicine used for intubation would only last another week.

In an official statement to CNN, the department said it was demanding “explicit and urgent measures” from the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A national crisis

According to a CNN analysis, nearly a quarter of global deaths in Covid-19 have occurred in Brazil in the past two weeks. At least 294,042 people in the country have died since the pandemic began.

Last week, the Brazilian National Mayoral Front (FNP) sent a letter to President Jair Bolsonaro and the health ministry asking for “immediate action” from the federal government to provide sedatives and oxygen to intubated patients taking Covid-19 and others. have diseases.

“It is unreasonable that people, Brazilian citizens, are driven to such desperate deaths by ‘drowning in the dry’ or that they have to be tied up and maintain their consciousness during the delicate and painful process of intubation and that people throughout the period intubated., ‘reads the letter.

The Federal Board of Pharmacists (CFF) has also warned that there is a shortage of neuromuscular blockers, sedatives and other drugs used in intensive care, such as midazolam, which are essential for human and safe intubation.

These were not the first such warnings. In August 2020, a report by the National Health Council – an agency attached to the Brazilian Ministry of Health – described the risk of a shortage of drugs amid the pandemic.

“The shortage of this medicine jeopardizes the whole structure planned for health care during the pandemic … because even with available beds, without this medicine, it is not possible to perform the procedure, which the whole health system can causes collapse, ”wrote Council President Fernando Pigatto, Council President.

A call to change tactics

Bolsonaro, who celebrated his 66th birthday on Sunday, sees the Covid-19 continue in the country. A survey by polling institute Datafolha last week showed he disapproved of 54% over handling the pandemic.

The president refused to endorse lock-in measures, arguing that he was protecting citizens’ freedom and the economic health of the country. His administration also said civil servants have the power to take precautionary measures.

However, Bolsonaro announced last week that his government had filed a lawsuit to stop governors and mayors from imposing certain restrictions, after several curfews and other strict measures were adopted. “It’s a state of siege that only one person can determine – me,” he said.

More than 500 leading Brazilian bankers, economists and politicians on Sunday published an open letter in the country’s largest newspapers asking the federal government to reconsider its approach to the pandemic.

“This recession … will not be overcome until the pandemic is controlled by competent action by the federal government. It uses the resources at its disposal and abuses them, including the fact that scientific evidence is ignored or neglected in the design of actions to deal with the pandemic, “the bankers and economists wrote.

“We are on the threshold of an explosive phase of the pandemic and it is imperative that public policy in future be based on data, reliable information and scientific evidence,” the letter said.

CNN’s Hira Humayun and Caitlin Hu contributed to this report.

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