Number of coronavirus cases in Brazil is 15 times higher than official data, researchers point out – National

Underreporting is one of the main Brazilian problems in combating COVID-19 (photo: Edésio Ferreira / EM / D.A Press)

The number of cases of the new coronavirus in Brazil is 15 times higher than official figures, according to researchers who estimate that contagions 300,000 people and fear an catastrophe in the next weeks.

THE Brazil is the country in Latin America most affected by the pandemic, which arrived here later than in Asia and Europe. In the last balance, the authorities registered 1,736 dead. The peak of contagion is expected from May.

According to estimates by the Covid-19 Brazil group, a collective of university researchers, in the country of 210 million 313,288 cases last Saturday: 15 times more than the 20,727 confirmed cases announced by the Ministry of Health.

The reason for this huge difference in the country of continental dimensions is that detection rate is much lower that of other countries affected by the virus.

In Brazil, the proportion is 296 people evaluated per million, an insignificant figure compared to Germany (15,730), France (5,114) and Iran (3,421).

“Brazil is in a bad position vis-à-vis other countries that have increased the number of tests as the epidemic began to set in. We will only use this epidemic if we do mass testing,” says Domingos Alves, in a statement to AFP. , member of the COVID-19 Brazil group and head of the Health Intelligence Laboratory (LIS) at the University of São Paulo (USP).

Alves also criticizes ltesting results, which leads many families to bury their loved ones without confirmation of the cause of death.

According to him, official figures show where the epidemic been there a week or two.

The concern is shared by the authorities, forced to improvise while awaiting test orders, delayed by the height of global demands.

“We know that 85% of asymptomatic cases we will never detect”, admitted last week the Secretary of Health Surveillance of the Ministry, Wanderson de Oliveira.

In public hospitals, the instructions are clear: only severe cases should be tested.

“Currently, there are no tests for patients who are not going to be hospitalized“Fred Nicacio, an emergency doctor in Bauru, in the interior of São Paulo, told AFP.

“For patients with suspicion, it is necessary to ask for social isolation in writing. Isolation for two weeks. There are a multitude of patients who are not in a serious condition, but are positive. They are not counted because they are not tested,” he adds.

For Domingos Alves, the group’s calculations COVID-19 Brazil they serve to alert the population to the real dimension of the pandemic, as some people tend to let their guard down.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized the containment measures adopted by governors in almost every state in the country.

“If people continue to take to the streets, we will see scenes like in Guayaquil, Ecuador, with people dying at home and bodies abandoned on the street. In Manaus, hospitals are already on the verge of collapse,” he emphasizes.

Dimas Covas, president of the Butantan Institute, which coordinates the tests in the state of São Paulo, the most affected by the pandemic in Brazil, admits that cases exceed official figures.

“We are looking in the rearview mirror. We have to look at the front window of the car and see what lies ahead. In the next two or three weeks, we will know exactly the size of this epidemic. We are at the beginning of it and we will know if we will find an Everest ahead, or a softer hill, “he explained last week, during a press conference.

To have numbers close to reality, he relies on1.3 million tests were completed imported from South Korea, of which 725,000 were delivered on Tuesday.

“Although we have very well equipped laboratories, we still depend on imported inputs. We need to have more and more methodologies, inputs, national products, manufactured in Brazil, to quickly meet the demand,” Rejane Grotto, head of a laboratory at the State University, told AFP of São Paulo (Unesp).

An important challenge in view of successive budget cuts for research in recent years.

Some universities have resorted to financial support from technology companies and even fundraising campaigns over the Internet to develop test projects produced locally.