June 30, 2022

13:06

Eduardo Figueiredo and Bruno Pacheco – from Amazon Agency

MANAUS – After the alert released by the Amazonas State Department of Health (SES-AM) and the Health Surveillance Foundation of Amazonas – Dr. Rosemary Costa Pinto (FVS-RCP) on the increase in cases of Covid-19 confirmed in the state, the Municipal Health Secretariat (Semsa) announced on the night of Wednesday, 29, the application of the fourth dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 for people over 18 years who have taken the third dose at least four months ago.

The locations with schedules and vaccines available can be found on the Semsa’s website and also in the social networks of the secretariat (@semsamanaus on Instagram and Semsa Manaus on Facebook). In all Basic Health Units (UBSs) are offered the first, second, third and fourth doses of vaccine.

According to the Municipal Health Secretary, Djalma Coelho, the new health units that will apply the vaccine against Covid-19 were chosen strategically, in places of high concentration of people and also in areas of empty care.

Also according to the secretary, the vaccination sites operate in three different schedules: ten UBSs with extended hours, from 8am to 8pm, another 64 UBSs with normal hours, from 8am to 5pm, and seven Family Health Units (USFs), from 8am to 4pm.

“All people from 5 years old on can start the vaccination scheme and must update it with the doses released for their age group, following the intervals recommended by the Ministry of Health. Just show up at the vaccination sites carrying identity document with photo and vaccine card”, said the head of Semsa.

Increase in cases

On Wednesday, 29, 222 new cases of the disease were registered in the Amazon, according to the Daily Bulletin of Covid-19. With this, the state totals 584,656 cases and no deaths were registered in the last 24 hours.

The bulletin also adds that 1,222 people diagnosed with Covid-19 are being monitored by the municipal health secretariats, which corresponds to 0.19% of the active confirmed cases.

The document released by SES and FVS-RCP warns that the growth was driven by Manaus, whose number of cases went from 18 to 103 new cases per day. In the countryside, the increase in the daily average was from 8 to 20 daily cases. The state capital has 62% of the cases registered in the last two months.

According to FVS-RCP, the increase of cases did not represent significant reflections in hospitalizations and deaths, because the number of people admitted to Intensive Care Units (ICU) with the virus is low, being one of the lowest rates of hospitalizations by the disease since the beginning of the pandemic. On Tuesday 28th, the folder registered only three patients hospitalized in ICU and in the public network.

For the director-president of FVS-RCP, this reduced number of severe cases of the disease is due to the vaccination against Covid-19. “It is necessary that everyone remains alert and do not relax because it is the vaccine that provides the non-worsening of cases”, said Tatyana Amorim.

Fourth wave

The scientist and epidemiologist Jesem Orellana, from Fiocruz Amazon, pointed out that the fourth wave of the pandemic is already in the capital of Amazonas and the cases of the virus should intensify, mainly, because of big events, such as the traditional festivities of São João and the Folkloric Festival of Parintins. Moreover, the specialist says that the tendency of increase in the cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), especially by Covid-19, in Manaus, is not from today, but from a few weeks ago.

“The fact that we are seeing this curve of increase in severe cases in the fourth wave proves that we were already having thousands of cases in the community for a longer time and they were, simply, going blank in the official statistics, which characterizes a silent or hidden epidemic, as we saw at the turn of 2021 to 2022, when suddenly the hospitalizations began to increase. The difference now, in the middle of the fourth wave, is that the authorities are no longer interested in mass testing and are once again focusing, mistakenly, on the hospital, from where it is impossible to control the epidemic, because the viral spread occurs in the community or outside the hospital”, he said.

Read also: AM has increase in cases of Covid-19 with Manaus experiencing fourth wave and flu