Sao Paulo (EFE)
With almost 700,000 deaths, since the death in Sao Paulo of a woman on March 12, 2020, a victim of covid-19, and more than 37 million infections, the country has overcome the collapse of the public health system that took place in the highest peaks of the pandemic.
The country also has one of the highest anticovid vaccination coverage rates in the world, with 82% of the population with the complete primary schedule and 58% with the third booster dose.
However, the variants of the coronavirus keep the health authorities on alert and the vaccination campaigns now continue with more determined support from the government of the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“Despite always wanting an early, fast and specific treatment for the disease, people took time to find it,” said the president of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, Alberto Chebabo, to the state news service Agencia Brasil.
Vaccination, key against covid
Chebabo celebrated that since the end of 2022 medicines were “incorporated” into the Unified Health System (SUS) “to treat cases with the worst response to the vaccine.”
Lula has been promoting vaccination days throughout the country, in an attitude totally opposite to that of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who did not wear masks, promoted crowds, criticized vaccines and defended remedies without scientific proof.
During the pandemic, the Senate went so far as to establish a Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) to investigate the responsibility of the previous government in its health management and Bolsonaro’s denialist attitude.