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For weeks now, the Amazon State has been facing the second wave of COVID-19 amid a shortage of UCI beds and oxygen to treat severe patients.
Brazil's Health Ministry Thursday informed that 506 COVID-19 patients have been evacuated from the Amazon state to other territories so far due to healthcare system collapse.
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The Air Force airlifted the patients to Rondonia, Para, and Rio de Janeiro. These states have less health burden than the Amazon state, which is in crisis due to the lack of beds and oxygen.
Local authorities foresee moving 1,500 patients in the next few days to gain space in the territory's hospitals to receive new patients.
"We are negotiating with a private airline company that could transport up to 80 patients in each trip," Amazon governor Wilson Miranda explained.
LOOK: Municipal health workers travel along the Amazon river to start vaccinating riverside communities in Manacapuru, Amazonas state, Brazil, a region hard hit by Covid-19 and are now facing a lethal surge friven by new Brazilian variant. | �� Bruno Kelly/Reuters pic.twitter.com/Ltriui6X2L
— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) February 4, 2021
Last week, Rondonia's authorities requested to transfer patients from its hospitals to other bordering regions after 100 percent of its intensive care unit (ICU) beds were occupied.
"Today, hospitals are in better conditions, and they are available to help those in need," Rondonia governor Marcos Rocha said.
Lack of oxygen to treat COVID-19 patients and delays in carrying out transfers of sick people from the Amazon state are the basis of an investigation opened against Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello by the Federal Supreme Court (TSJ)
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