Brazil is one of the countries that least tests for covid-19, below Cuba and Chile.

Brazil is one of the countries that least tests for covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, according to an international comparison made by BBC News Brazil based on official data compiled by the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.

As of April 20, according to the Ministry of Health, 132,467 specific tests were performed for covid-19. Another 56,613 are under analysis.

The figures do not include tests conducted in private hospitals and clinics, only in the public health system.

“The Ministry of Health reports that, according to data from the Manager of the Environmental Laboratory (GAL), until April 20, 189,080 viral panel examinations (various respiratory viruses) were carried out at the Central Public Health Laboratories (LACEN) of the Of these, 132,467 were specific to covid-19 and another 56,613 are under analysis, “the agency said in a statement to BBC News Brazil.

According to the folder, the tests “under analysis” are tests that “are being processed in laboratories and have not yet been completed.”

This means that, currently, the proportion of tests per 1,000 inhabitants in Brazil, considering a population of 210 million people, is 0.63 (or 63 per 100,000 inhabitants).

This rate is lower than that of many countries in the world, including Latin America, such as Cuba (2.65), Chile (6.43), Paraguay (0.83), Peru (4.44), Argentina (0.76) and Ecuador (1.15).

It is also much lower than that of developed nations, such as Germany (25.11) and Italy (23.64), and the United States (12.08), the new epicenter of the pandemic, according to the Our World In Data platform, from the University of Oxford, UK, which collects official data from more than 70 countries and territories. At the time of publishing this report, Brazil had not yet been included in the list because the Brazilian Ministry of Health “does not publish periodic updates on the tests,” one of those responsible for collecting the data told BBC News Brazil.

But if it were included in the ranking, Brazil would be in position 60 among 75 countries that carried out the covid-19 test until April 20, only ahead of Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Morocco, Bolivia, India, Senegal, Mexico , Uganda, Nepal, Kenya, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, respectively.

Leading the ranking is Iceland (127.58), Luxembourg, Bahrain, Estonia and Israel.

According to Our World In Data, “no country knows the true number of cases of people infected with covid-19. All we know is the infection status of those who have been evaluated.”

“The total number of people who tested positive (the number of confirmed cases) is not the number of people infected. The actual number of people infected with covid-19 is much higher.”

According to the platform, more tests mean “more reliable data on confirmed cases, for two reasons.”

“First, a greater number of tests gives us a larger ‘sample’ of people from whom we know the status of the infection. If everyone were screened, we would know the actual number of people infected.”

“Second, countries with high test capacity may not need to ration tests as much. Where test capacity is low, tests may be reserved (rationed) for high-risk groups. This rationing is one reason why people evaluated are not representative of the general population. “

“As such, where test coverage is highest, the sample of people tested may provide a less biased idea of ​​the true prevalence of the virus.”

• Coronavirus: why has Brazil failed to do massive testing yet?

In addition to determining the true extent of the contagion, experts add that, with this information, governments can formulate more appropriate public policies, isolating the most vulnerable patients or groups, to prevent the spread of the disease.

In practice, they say, health officials will know when to implement or relax social isolation measures, for example.

“Without knowing the real dimension of the epidemic, a government can act late or take drastic measures without being necessary,” virologist Anderson Brito, from the department of epidemiology at the Yale University School of Public Health, explained in an interview in the United States. BBC News Brazil.

Brazil

In Brazil, there was an explosion of hospitalizations for severe respiratory failure (SARS). From March 15 to 21, there were more than 8,000 hospitalizations, against approximately 1,000 in the same period last year. Of these, only 780 tested positive for covid-19, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

In group interviews, the agency admitted the lack of evidence. One of the problems is the lack of inputs for the production of the tests, since there is a world race of countries for these substances.

In other words, there is a problem of low supply and high demand.

Despite this, the new Minister of Health, Nelson Teich, said there is no possibility of conducting massive population tests to detect the new coronavirus.

“There is no magic formula, there is no mass test. What you have to do is use the tests to map the population in a way that your sample reflects the whole. Having the data, interpreting it, and taking initiatives from that is the it. It will make all the difference, “he said at his first press conference at the head of the agency.

In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) asked countries to carry out massive tests on their populations to combat the new coronavirus pandemic.

At the time, the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that testing any suspected case of covid-19 would be essential in identifying and isolating as many infected people as possible and knowing who may have contacted them so they can be destroyed. The transmission chain.

One of the best examples of this came from South Korea. The country did not quarantine, like other places in the world, but instead tested millions of people, which, along with other measures, dramatically reduced the number of new cases and deaths.

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