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In the framework of the investigation carried out by the Public Ministry for an alleged reckless dissemination of pathogenic germs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile, in which President Sebastián Piñera, former Minister of Health Jaime Mañalich and other authorities are sued , the former head of Noncommunicable Diseases of the Ministry of Health (Minsal), Andrea Albagli Iruretagoyena, delivered a 21-page statement to prosecutors Ximena Chong and Marcelo Carrasco.
In his statement, delivered on September 30, which reports Cyprus, indicates that he remembers “very clearly one day when they ask us to change the information. The minister reported with a parallel system unknown to us, that first they were called by telephone, then an access code that put the totals. He reported these figures in the morning, before we will publish the reports. On April 24, because previously the absolute value reported from Epidemiology was always lower than that reported by the minister, that day the information that was in Epivigila passed that reported by Mañalich. that when I had received the database, my direct manager, Rodrigo Fuentes, told me that at the request of the minister, the last records must be erased to make it fit, because although there could be differences, the information from Epivigila could not exceed what was reported by the minister. We did not do it. “
Albagli Iruretagoyena is a psychologist from the Catholic University, a Master’s in Public Health in Toronto, a UC Master’s in Epidemiology and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto. Before resigning from Minsal on September 15, she went on to work in the team led by Rodrigo Fuentes, who is the head of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Office. She resigned because of this PhD and because “I was ethically very uncomfortable with the way the pandemic was being handled.”
The professional says that her boss was initially Johanna Acevedo, former chief of Epidemiology. “Then, in mid-April, Johanna was promoted to division chief, so Rodrigo Fuentes became department head for a month and a half. Later he is replaced by the current boss, Rafael Araos “.
Later he delved into this modification of figures, so that they fit. “This request is made by my direct leadership, but on behalf of the cabinet. That day the Gap was 30 cases, it was small. There were 30 cases of contagion no more. They ask me from the cabinet of the minister to do it again so that it adjusts, between quotation marks, the value without exceeding that reported by the minister, “he added.
“It was very evident to me that this was inappropriate, that we couldn’t do it. We receive this indication at 11.30 or 12.00. We had the (epidemiological) report ready and we were finishing it, before its publication in the afternoon, that’s when they asked us to modify the report and the database to what the minister had said. It was verbal but there are more witnesses. Everyone from the office was there, Pía Álvarez, Silvina Alvarado, Patricia Cerda, Rocío Martínez, Fabio Paredes, Mario Soto. We all shared the same space, except for two who were there incidentally. We were in dependencies of the ministry, “he added.
He said that “with the database I mean what is extracted from Epivigila, what is downloaded. What happened was that I rejected the request, because manipulating the database is an irregularity. The minister’s order was maintained, which was not admissible, so it was requested that they change the cut-off point of the base, that if it was unloaded at 22.00, for example, it was unloaded earlier, I do not remember well but the cut was moved by 18.00. They advanced the cut-off point until there was a value equal to or lower than that reported by the minister ”.
The prosecutors asked him about his reaction to this event: “I know there was an agreement between my peers, but only I verbalized it. Rodrigo Fuentes answered that it was correct, that it was an irregularity and then he returned with a second proposal.”
Later they asked him if there was any concern about the differences, to which Albagli replied that “only on one occasion, verbally, Johanna Acevedo said that she was worried and seeking that this be repaired by the minister (…) I will send the emails that I have in this regard and an image of the parallel system created by the minister (…) It came to me and I kept it for record. Neither was a system endorsed by the Department of Epidemiology. “
The deaths and their resignation
During the interrogation, the professional said that “we did an analysis on the risk of dying from Covid in different people, it was found that those assigned to Fonasa were more likely to die than those who were in Isapre. I found relevant information and I report it to headquarters. A few days ago, Minister Paris said that there is information that rules out the relationship between fatality and poverty, that is not the truth, since although they are complex models subject to improvement, at least there is relevant information that suggests it, so when it is discarded , there is no information that can rule out this information. I sent that email on June 22 ”.
Along these lines, he explained that when people started talking about the plateau, a new normal, and a safe return, these were recommendations that came from the “cabinet of the minister or undersecretary, they never came from Epidemiology, what’s more, my leadership, Johanna Acevedo, never agreed. OK, we weren’t on a plateau, you couldn’t speak of a plateau ”.
“The first number of recovered did not go through Epidemiology either, it was from the cabinet. They asked us to publish them but I pointed out that it was not ethical,” he added. For this reason, he resigned in part: “When they ask us to manipulate the database, although it has not been done, a decision was made that, although it is not an administrative fault, is still reprehensible for a decision not to report everything that could be done. inform, ”he declared.
Albagli also stressed that the Epivigila data showed a higher lethality (number of deaths compared to the total infected) of Fonasa patients versus those of Isapre, but the portfolio authorities did nothing to take action in this regard.
The specialist prepared a document entitled “Analysis of the deceased”, sent on June 22 to the head of the DIPLAS, Johanna Acevedo, and the head of the Epidemiology Department, Rafael Araos, where she remarks that “it is observed that within all cases confirmed, the probability of dying from Covid is 86% higher in people enrolled in Fonasa compared to people enrolled in isapre, adjusting for sex, age and presence of chronic diseases. If this analysis is limited to the population with confirmed Covid that was hospitalized, this parameter increases, and the probability of dying from Covid in the Fonasa population is more than double “.
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