Sao Paulo, 15 Apr 2021 (AFP) -Brazilian authorities warned on Thursday about the critical lack of medicines for intubation in public health centers in the state of Sao Paulo and expressed concern at the risk of collapse in the middle of the second wave of the pandemic.
A report by the Council of Municipal Secretaries of Health of the State of Sao Paulo (Cosems-SP) reveals that 68% of the centers in the municipal network do not have neuroblocks -necessary to relax the muscles during the intubation process-, and the 61% ran out of their sedative reserves.
“Analysis of the April 13 data, compared to April 5, shows the worsening situation of intubation drug reserves,” the report reports.
“We have been sending letters to the Ministry of Health for 40 days with this alert and asking for help. (…) These are important drugs to sedate patients” who have to face intubation, the health secretary said on Thursday. from Sao Paulo, Jean Gorinchteyn, in an interview with GNews.
Gorinchteyn reported that a new shipment of medicines is due to arrive this Thursday, but stressed that it is crucial to speed up the supply of medicines due to the demand generated by the high number of covid-19 cases, and has blamed the Ministry of Health to make it impossible to buy tickets directly from manufacturers.
Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria has reported on Twitter that orders to the Ministry of Health “were ignored,” and that his office is looking for alternatives to buy these medicines in the international market.
Brazil has been seeing an increase in covid-19 infections and deaths for months.
Sao Paulo, the most populous state (45.9 million), accounts for a moving average of 15,000 cases and 773 deaths per day, according to the Ministry of Health.
The state has 2.6 million cases and 85,475 deaths, with a rate of 186 deaths per 100,000 population, higher than the national average of 172 deaths per 100,000 population.
To date, 86.4% of the contingents of intensive care units are occupied, and some hospitals announced the reduction of beds due to lack of admissions.
In Rio de Janeiro and Mines Gerais, states that were equally hard hit by the second wave of the pandemic in Brazil, reports of a lack of intubation drugs also emerged.
Local media reported on Wednesday that in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro it was necessary to tie up some patients who, despite being intubated, woke up to the lack of sedatives.
Brazil, with 212 million inhabitants, surpassed 360,000 coronavirus deaths this Wednesday and remains the second country with the highest absolute number of deaths, behind the United States (564,400).
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AFP