The Government of Rio Grande do Sul decreed public health emergency throughout the state to combat SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)with a focus on caring for children. The decree was published by the state administration in the DOE (Official State Gazette), this Thursday (30).
The measure, which is valid for the next 120 days from the date of publication, is taken after the increase in contaminations and hospitalizations due to respiratory infectious diseases, especially in children. According to the ministry, the formation of waiting lines in health units can increase the health risk for the entire population.
During the period of the decree, hospital networks that provide services to the SUS (Unified Health System) must prioritize emergency assistance in clinical beds, with ventilatory support, and ICUs (Intensive Care Units)with the focus of combating and preventing cases of SARS.
SARS is a clinical definition to identify the status of a patient from influenza, covid-19 (Sars-Cov-2) and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus)for example.
According to the state government, there was an increase in 102.7% of hospitalizations due to SARS, 533.3% due to the influenza virusespecially of the H3N2 subtype, and 376.9% by the Rhinovirus virus, which registered a growth of 528.6% among .
Two data that contributed to the determination were the proportional growth of flu-like symptoms in one week in Rio Grande do Sulwhich suggested “an increase in the circulation of respiratory viruses”, in addition to the positivity rate for virus detection found by the Central Laboratory of the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
“The Department of Health will coordinate actions and public health services aimed at and will establish general guidelines for the implementation and execution of appropriate measures for its containment, with priority given to the care of children, and may issue additional acts necessary for the execution of urgent measures that ensure the care of citizens in the public health network and that help service providers to face the state of emergency in public health.”, informed the Government.
Municipalities may adopt other measures related to the conditions of each location.
The same measure had already been taken by Eduardo Leite’s government in May of last year. Of these hospitalizations, 305 people died. Among children under five years of age, 1,374 hospitalizations and 10 deaths were recorded.
