Positive test rate indicates underestimated epidemic in Brazil, who says

The percentage of tests for the new coronavirus that give positive results in Brazil, 31%, indicates that the actual number of people infected in the country may be underestimated, said on Monday (22) the executive director of WHO (World Health Organization), Michael Ryan.
According to him, Brazil still tests a very small portion of the population. "In countries that apply a large number of tests, the percentage of positives is close to 5%," said the executive director.
Imperial College calculations based on the number of deaths reported in the last week also indicate an underreporting of cases of infection by the new coronavirus in Brazil. According to the British research center, Brazil records 34% of possible cases, that is, the number of Infected Brazilians may be three times that reported.
Imperial College starts from the premise that the mortality rate per case of the new coronavirus is 1.38% -for each reported death there were 72.5 people infected. This Sunday (21), the country reached 50,659 deaths, which, by the premise of the British center, indicates up to 3.671 million cases of the new coronavirus in the country.
Ryan said that, in general, the June figures show that the epidemic has stabilized in Brazil, but that it is necessary to look carefully at the growth reported in recent days. According to him, part can be attributed to several changes in the form of disclosure, which would have led to a drop in the previous week, compensated now.
According to him, as the number of tests in Brazil is still small, the recent growth could not be explained by an increase in diagnoses.
There is no standardized data on the amount of tests applied in the country. While the Our World in Data platform speaks of 243 tests per 100,000 inhabitants since the beginning of the pandemic (3% of what they attribute to Spain, one of the countries with the most per capita tests in the world), WorldOmeter records 1,143 tests per 100,000 inhabitants (about one tenth of the rate they attribute to spain).
Despite the lack of accurate information, Brazilian authorities and experts themselves say that testing programs in Brazil are limited.
More important than the average test rate, however, according to Maria van Kerkhove, who's technical leader, it is a more detailed diagnosis of which regions or locations the transmission is happening in.
"It is very important to know where the contagion happens, to use the available resources as efficiently as possible," he said.
The WHO Executive Director said that while the recent jump in cases in Brazil deserves care, it is necessary to take into account that the epidemic is growing throughout the region.
According to him, in the last week Brazil recorded a rise of 25%, while Chile had 41%, Argentina, 38%, Colombia, 35%, Panama, 26%, Bolivia, 33%, Guatemala, 39%. "I don't want to give the impression that I'm isolating Brazil from what's happening throughout Latin America," Ryan said.