“If possible, (women should) postpone the pregnancy a bit for a better time so that (they) can have a calmer pregnancy,” Raphael Camara, Secretary of Primary Health Care of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, said on Friday. . “We cannot say this to those who are 42, 43 years old, of course, but for a young woman who can, the best thing is to wait a little,” he said during a press conference.
Brazil ranks second after the United States in terms of deaths from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 368,749 deaths and more than 13.8 million cases. Cities across the country have been hit hard by a recent surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths, driven in part by new variants believed to be more contagious and by some Brazilians’ disregard for social distancing precautions. .
“In Brazil, the federal response has been a dangerous combination of inaction and wrongdoing, including promoting chloroquine as a treatment despite a lack of evidence,” a team led by Marcia Castro of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health , experts at the University of São Paulo and elsewhere wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.
The researchers argued that “swift and fair” responses from the federal government could have helped contain the outbreak and protect the most vulnerable, but leaders have not, and continue to fail.
In the city of Manaus, an increase in severe cases caused the collapse of hospital systems, with oxygen shortages for patients.
“Without immediate action, this could be a preview of what is yet to happen in other locations in Brazil,” the team warned. Unless the government takes immediate action, carries out epidemiological and genomic surveillance measures, and ramps up vaccines, the spread of variants will likely lead to “unimaginable loss of life.”
Camara said on Friday that the ministry is working on studies on the issue of pregnancy and variants.
“We do not have a national or international study, but the clinical view of the experts shows that the new variant has a more aggressive action in pregnant women,” he said. “Before, [severity] it was linked to the end of pregnancy, but now (they) see a more serious evolution in the second trimester and even in the first trimester, “he added.