The mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), signed this Monday (18) a decree declaring an emergency in the capital of São Paulo due to the high number of dengue cases in the municipality.
The city reached a disease transmission rate of 414 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers it an epidemic when the rate is equal to or greater than 300 per 100,000 people. According to city hall, the city has 46,721 confirmed cases of the disease, with 11 deaths.
With the decree, the city hall is authorized to take special measures to combat the disease, in particular the hiring of labor, materials and services.
In administrative terms, the main change is supported by federal law 14,133/2021, which authorizes exemption from bidding “when there is an urgency to deal with a situation that could cause damage or compromise the continuity of public services or the safety of people, works, services, equipment and other goods, public or private, and only for the acquisition of goods necessary to deal with the emergency or calamitous situation and for the installments of works and services that can be completed within a maximum period of one year”.
According to the city hall, the donation and transfer of equipment and goods to combat the disease are also authorized.
Another measure is the suspension of vacations and days off for agents fighting endemic diseases and community health agents and employees of environmental surveillance and health units in the municipality, in addition to the “joint action of community health agents and agents fighting endemic diseases with the execution of home visiting activities and other field actions to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito”.
The suspension of vacations and days off for health workers had already been advised by the São Paulo government to municipalities when the state declared an emergency at the beginning of this month.
The city of São Paulo says it will send, this Monday, a letter to the federal government asking for doses of the dengue vaccine to be sent to the capital of São Paulo. The municipal administration states that this will be the fourth letter presented and that the other three have not been responded to.
According to the ministry, “the number of health regions included in this first stage was limited by the number of vaccine doses planned for 2024, capable of serving the population aged 10 to 14 in 521 municipalities announced by the Ministry of Health”. “Thus, the municipality of São Paulo was not excluded from the selection, and will receive the vaccine as soon as the Ministry of Health has more doses available.”
Other actions to combat dengue
The Municipal Health Department says that, in addition to the state of emergency decree, it is adopting new actions to combat the disease. Are they:
- Expansion of opening hours in all 80 AMAs (Ambulatory Medical Assistance). From today onwards, these units will have three more hours of service every day, remaining open until 10pm
- Reinforcement of 3,200 women hired by the Operation Work Program (POT). They will undergo training and will be distributed across the 32 sub-prefectures
- Support for 6,500 mothers hired by POT Mães Guardians who will have a training course for guidance in municipal schools
- 30 more fogging vehicles, bringing the total number to 96
- Reinforcement of the awareness campaign, with banners at road intersections, bus terminals and inside bus stations
- New tents to care for people with symptoms, in Itaquera and São Miguel Paulista
(Published by Fábio Mathias)
Source: CNN Brasil
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