Hospitals in the Brazilian city of Manaus have reached breaking point while treating Covid-19 patients, amid reports of severe oxygen shortages and desperate staff. The city, in Amazonas state, has seen a surge of deaths and infections. Health professionals, quoted by local media, warned ” many people ” could die due to lack of supplies and assistance.
Brazil has recorded more than 205,000 virus deaths – the second highest tally in the world, behind the US. A new coronavirus variant has recently emerged in Brazil, with several cases in travelers arriving in Japan traced back to the Amazonas region.
Amazonas suffered heavy losses in the first wave of the pandemic but is also being badly hit by a new rise in infections. Refrigerated containers were brought to hospitals to help store bodies last week, as authorities declared a state of emergency.
Reports in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper described desperate staff having to try to keep patients alive through manual ventilation. In a widely shared video from the region, a female medical worker asks the internet for help: ” We’re in an awful state. Oxygen has simply run out across the whole unit today. ”
” There is no oxygen and lots of people are dying, ” she says in the clip. ” If anyone has any oxygen, please bring it to the clinic. There are so many people dying. ” Marcellus Campelo, a local health secretary, said the state needed three times the amount of oxygen it can produce locally and appealed for help. Health officials also say some patients will be airlifted to other states for treatment.
Felipe Naveca, deputy director of research at the state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, told the BBC’s South America correspondent Katy Watson that the new variant had evolved seperately from those in the UK and South Africa, but that it showed some of the same characteristics: ” Some of these mutations have been linked to increased transmission and that is of concern. ” ” We have to do a lot more sequencing of samples to answer that question,” he said.
PRAYER POINTS:
For oxygen to be supplied to the people of Brazil, especially the city of Manaus, as well as other supplies they need.
For this new strain to not speed up the rate of infection
For the healthcare workers and their families, they are risking their lives in the midst of the pandemic
For coronavirus and every strain and variant of this disease to bow to the name of Jesus, we command this deadly virus to be rendered null and no more
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Tiffani Isaza reporting
