Brazil is experiencing a new wave of Covid-19, according to infectious disease specialist and director of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations, Renato Kfouri.
In an interview with CNN Radio he drew attention to the fact that “we are not recording the totality of cases, and there is increasing underreporting, with people testing less or not reporting self-test results.”
“The increase in cases is much greater than reported, we all know people who have Covid-19, it is a time of greater circulation”, he pointed out.
Kfouri said that the increase is also reflected in the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. “We went back to the level of 6,000 deaths per month, and we even reduced it to 3,000, approximately.”
According to the director of SBIm, the biggest difficulty at the moment is the “understanding that the primary vaccination schedule is 3 doses.”
“We have a good part of the population with only two doses, but for the current variant, Ômicron, with the ba4 and ba5 subvariants, two doses are not enough for adequate protection”, he added.
The infectious disease specialist argues that, in addition to encouraging vaccination with a complete schedule, including the fourth dose for those who are already eligible, it is also important to “associate the therapies that we have records, antivirals and monoclonal antibodies”, especially for people who are vulnerable even with vaccine, such as transplant recipients and those over 80 years of age.
“We have antivirals that work, they are registered, but we are taking a long time to meet the most vulnerable population.”
Renato Kfouri also warns that it is not possible to trivialize the number of deaths daily by Covid-19.
“When we go from the level of 4,000 deaths a day to 200 deaths, there seems to be a sense of tranquility, and this has been reflected in behavior, such as not wearing a mask, it is a huge risk, no infectious and vaccine-preventable disease has these numbers. ”.
*With production by Isabel Campos
Source: CNN Brasil
