What Brazil is doing to have enough respirators against Covid-19

While drugs and vaccines are tested to treat Covid-19, the main ally in the battle of health professionals to save lives are respirators. The device is of fundamental importance to keep patients in a more severe state of the disease alive. Brazil is not yet sure how many respirators, also called pulmonary ventilators, will be needed to account for the pandemic, which has not yet reached its peak in the country. Still, it runs out of time to have a minimally sufficient number of these devices. According to the World Health Organization, 80% of those infected with Covid-19 are asymptomatic or have milder symptoms, but 20% of them develop more severe conditions – which requires hospitalization and use of breathing. Data released on Wednesday (1) by the Ministry of Health, indicate that there are 21,426 patients hospitalized for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in the country, and 6% of them have confirmation for Covid-19. At the moment, the country's hospitals have 65,411 respirators, of which 46,663 are available in the Unified Health System (SUS), according to data from the Ministry of Health. The government plans to buy 32,000 more of this equipment. That is, increase the current capacity by 50%. An edict finalized last Tuesday (31), and in the process of examining the proposals, provides for the purchase of 15,000 new respirators for the whole country. Also according to the ministry, there is an expectation that another notice will be published aimed at the purchase of 17,000 more respirators.