Terrible stuff. The poor department (region) of Beni doesn't have enough respirators, it has a LOT of sick health care workers, and the procurement of more respirators is held up because allegedly corrupt officials made deals that quadrupled the respirator's price. Beni doesn't have enough tests. The undercount of fatalities is dramatic:
The official number of deaths from covid-19 in Beni is 57, but more than 100 have already been buried in the cemetery reserved for victims of this disease in the capital.
This is despite a two-month long confinement.
Bolivia is using ivermectin because of research conducted in Peru showing the drug reduces viral load, and because it's cheap.
however, scientists debate its efficacy and the dose to be administered, in addition to the fact that there are “preventive” self-medication problems.
Not sure what the last is about. Self-dosing the wrong dose?
The article:
Health collapse. What Bolivians wanted to avoid with a confinement that is already two months old has occurred anyway in one of the largest regions of the country: the Department of Beni, to the northeast. Its governor, Fanor Amapo, has declared a state of “disaster” and has requested national and international aid. The situation in the capital Trinidad has awakened the ghost of other Latin American territories severely hit by the pandemic, such as the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. This emergency occurs while the interim government is still knocked out by a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Health.
The city of Trinidad, the capital of Beni, has just over 100,000 inhabitants. It is one of the smallest departmental capitals in Bolivia. At the same time, it is the second, after Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with more confirmed cases of covid-19: 858 until this Friday. But it is feared that this figure will not come “even in the shadow of what is really happening,” the local press has denounced. Difficult access to tests and the tendency of patients to stay at home instead of showing up in collapsed hospitals and risking death far from their relatives, prevent the exact magnitude of the damage caused by the pandemic in Trinidad.
There are worrying signs. The official number of deaths from covid-19 in Beni is 57, but more than 100 have already been buried in the cemetery reserved for victims of this disease in the capital. In addition, several deaths in homes and shortages of coffins are reported. and personnel to proceed to burials. “There are several who die in their homes. People are in their houses with math [infusiones] eucalyptus [nebulizadores], but in two or three days the discomfort turns into pneumonia, ”Ronald Gutiérrez, director of the Trinidad Sentinel Center told the newspaper Page Seven, peace.
Another medicine used by the inhabitants of the region is ivermectin, a deworming substance that was used regularly in Beni, as in other livestock regions of the country. The Bolivian Government authorized it as an experimental remedy for covid-19, after learning about some studies carried out in Peru that attributed the ability to decrease the viral load in patients. The great difference of ivermectin compared to the other experimental remedies that are being used in different parts of the world against the virus is its low price; however, scientists debate its efficacy and the dose to be administered, in addition to the fact that there are “preventive” self-medication problems.
Beni has the second smallest GDP in Bolivia. It does not have enough hospitals and doctors to face the crisis. In addition, more than 80 doctors and 25 nurses reported being infected. A group of volunteers arrived from La Paz to reinforce the health personnel in the area. This group found that the health centers were collapsed, equipment and supplies were lacking and those that existed were not being well used, which explained why there were so many cases among the workers in the sector. The main shortage in Beni, as in the rest of the country, is that of respirators: the dozen that have been installed are already occupied and critical patients are only helped by oxygen cylinders.
The purchase of more respirators was one of the main promises of the interim government of Jeanine Áñez to the Bolivians. This action received a severe blow a few days ago, as a serious corruption scandal broke out that led to the arrest of the Minister of Health, Marcelo Navajas, and other officials of this Ministry. All of them were involved in the purchase, through intermediaries, of 170 experimental respirators from the Spanish firm GPA Innova. The investigations of the Office of the Prosecutor reveal a plot in which officials and businessmen related to the current Government and also to the previous one participated. So far it has emerged that three intermediaries, a Spanish company and two Bolivian businessmen, inflated the factory price of each respirator, which as confirmed yesterday by the manager of GPA Innova, Pau Sarsaneda, via Twitter, was $ 7,200. For this operation, the devices ended up costing just under $ 28,000 in the purchase contract. The total value of the contract was 4.7 million dollars, of which two million were paid with money that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had lent to Bolivia. For this reason, the local staff of this institution is also under investigation.
After the scandal, the opposition organizations to the Government have asked that Áñez renounce his aspiration to stand for the next presidential elections, which were postponed due to the health emergency. The president has not responded to the opposition. Instead, he promised that he will investigate the case of the price premium “whoever falls”, that he will return the “stolen money” and that he will introduce mechanisms for the public to supervise the correction of state purchases.
[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 1 points | Jun 01 2020 01:47:16
Terrible stuff. The poor department (region) of Beni doesn't have enough respirators, it has a LOT of sick health care workers, and the procurement of more respirators is held up because allegedly corrupt officials made deals that quadrupled the respirator's price. Beni doesn't have enough tests. The undercount of fatalities is dramatic:
The official number of deaths from covid-19 in Beni is 57, but more than 100 have already been buried in the cemetery reserved for victims of this disease in the capital.
This is despite a two-month long confinement.
Bolivia is using ivermectin because of research conducted in Peru showing the drug reduces viral load, and because it's cheap.
however, scientists debate its efficacy and the dose to be administered, in addition to the fact that there are “preventive” self-medication problems.
Not sure what the last is about. Self-dosing the wrong dose?
The article:
Health collapse. What Bolivians wanted to avoid with a confinement that is already two months old has occurred anyway in one of the largest regions of the country: the Department of Beni, to the northeast. Its governor, Fanor Amapo, has declared a state of “disaster” and has requested national and international aid. The situation in the capital Trinidad has awakened the ghost of other Latin American territories severely hit by the pandemic, such as the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. This emergency occurs while the interim government is still knocked out by a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Health.
The city of Trinidad, the capital of Beni, has just over 100,000 inhabitants. It is one of the smallest departmental capitals in Bolivia. At the same time, it is the second, after Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with more confirmed cases of covid-19: 858 until this Friday. But it is feared that this figure will not come “even in the shadow of what is really happening,” the local press has denounced. Difficult access to tests and the tendency of patients to stay at home instead of showing up in collapsed hospitals and risking death far from their relatives, prevent the exact magnitude of the damage caused by the pandemic in Trinidad.
There are worrying signs. The official number of deaths from covid-19 in Beni is 57, but more than 100 have already been buried in the cemetery reserved for victims of this disease in the capital. In addition, several deaths in homes and shortages of coffins are reported. and personnel to proceed to burials. “There are several who die in their homes. People are in their houses with math [infusiones] eucalyptus [nebulizadores], but in two or three days the discomfort turns into pneumonia, ”Ronald Gutiérrez, director of the Trinidad Sentinel Center told the newspaper Page Seven, peace.
Another medicine used by the inhabitants of the region is ivermectin, a deworming substance that was used regularly in Beni, as in other livestock regions of the country. The Bolivian Government authorized it as an experimental remedy for covid-19, after learning about some studies carried out in Peru that attributed the ability to decrease the viral load in patients. The great difference of ivermectin compared to the other experimental remedies that are being used in different parts of the world against the virus is its low price; however, scientists debate its efficacy and the dose to be administered, in addition to the fact that there are “preventive” self-medication problems.
Beni has the second smallest GDP in Bolivia. It does not have enough hospitals and doctors to face the crisis. In addition, more than 80 doctors and 25 nurses reported being infected. A group of volunteers arrived from La Paz to reinforce the health personnel in the area. This group found that the health centers were collapsed, equipment and supplies were lacking and those that existed were not being well used, which explained why there were so many cases among the workers in the sector. The main shortage in Beni, as in the rest of the country, is that of respirators: the dozen that have been installed are already occupied and critical patients are only helped by oxygen cylinders.
The purchase of more respirators was one of the main promises of the interim government of Jeanine Áñez to the Bolivians. This action received a severe blow a few days ago, as a serious corruption scandal broke out that led to the arrest of the Minister of Health, Marcelo Navajas, and other officials of this Ministry. All of them were involved in the purchase, through intermediaries, of 170 experimental respirators from the Spanish firm GPA Innova. The investigations of the Office of the Prosecutor reveal a plot in which officials and businessmen related to the current Government and also to the previous one participated. So far it has emerged that three intermediaries, a Spanish company and two Bolivian businessmen, inflated the factory price of each respirator, which as confirmed yesterday by the manager of GPA Innova, Pau Sarsaneda, via Twitter, was $ 7,200. For this operation, the devices ended up costing just under $ 28,000 in the purchase contract. The total value of the contract was 4.7 million dollars, of which two million were paid with money that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had lent to Bolivia. For this reason, the local staff of this institution is also under investigation.
After the scandal, the opposition organizations to the Government have asked that Áñez renounce his aspiration to stand for the next presidential elections, which were postponed due to the health emergency. The president has not responded to the opposition. Instead, he promised that he will investigate the case of the price premium “whoever falls”, that he will return the “stolen money” and that he will introduce mechanisms for the public to supervise the correction of state purchases.
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