Sao Paulo, April 15, 2021 (AFP) – Brazilian authorities on Thursday warned of the critical lack of drugs for intubation in public health centers in the state of Sao Paulo and raised concerns about the risk of collapse in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic.
A report by the Council of Municipal Health Secretaries of the State of Sao Paulo (Cosems-SP) shows that 68% of municipal network centers have no neuroblockers necessary to relax the muscles during the intubation process, and 61% ended up with their reserves of sedatives.
“The analysis of data from April 13, compared to April 5, shows the deterioration in the situation of intubation drug stocks,” the report said.
“We have been sending letters to the Ministry of Health for 40 days with this warning asking for help. (…) They are important drugs to calm patients” related to intubation, the Sao Paulo Minister of Health said. Jean Gorinchteyn, in an interview with GNews.
Gorinchteyn reported that a new shipment of drugs should arrive on Thursday, but he stressed that accelerating drug delivery is crucial due to the demand generated by the high number of cases of covid-19, and the Ministry of Health gave the blame for making it impossible to buy inputs directly from manufacturers.
Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria reported on Twitter that requests to the Ministry of Health “have been ignored” and that his office is looking for alternatives to purchase these drugs in the international market.
Brazil has been recording an increase in the number of infections and deaths from Covid-19 for months.
Sao Paulo, the most populous state (45.9 million), has 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 residents, higher than the national average of 172 deaths per 100,000 residents.
To date, 86.4% of intensive care unit places are occupied, and some hospitals have announced that they are reducing the number of beds due to lack of supplies.
In Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, states also badly affected by the second wave of the pandemic in Brazil, there were also reports of a lack of intubation drugs.
Local media reported Wednesday that in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, it was necessary to tie up some patients who, still intubated, woke up due to lack of sedatives.
Brazil, with a population of 212 million, exceeded more than 360,000 deaths from coronavirus on Wednesday and remains the second country with the highest absolute number of deaths, after the United States (564,400).
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AFP