Brazil: Manaus Health Crisis To Affect People in the Amazon

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday warned that the collapse of Manaus city's health system will also affect rural areas of the Amazon.

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The MSF physicians working in remote areas reported on the impossibility of transferring the most serious COVID-19 patients to Manaus where hospitals are already overcrowded with people in serious health conditions.

"In the last week, no patient was able to fly from Tefe town to Manaus. We lost three patients who could have survived if they had received care in an urban hospital," MSF mission director Pierre van Heddegem said.

Although hospitals in Manaus increased some beds in their intensive care units, the number of COVID-19 patients has grown exponentially.

The meme reads, "On Saturday 23, caravans and demonstrations in favor of COVID-19 vaccination and to remove Bolsonaro. For the Workers' Central Union (CUT) and its affiliates, the president is responsible for the explosion in the number of COVID-19 cases and related deaths."

Besides, local health facilities only have one-third of the required oxygen reserves, which has contributed to people dying of asphyxia.

Since April 2020, the MSF teams have been deployed in rural territories conducting prevention campaigns to alert the Amazonian population on how to protect themselves from COVID-19. On Monday, another MSF group arrived to reinforce the Amazon state's health system.

Two weeks ago, forced by the seriousness of the epidemiological situation in Manaus, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, who is famous for both raising doubts about vaccines and minimizing the pandemic's consequences, asked India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send the AstraZeneca vaccine urgently.