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 Brazilians with COVID-19 symptoms are facing long lines to get
tested due to the lack of kits in a country without a comprehensive
testing strategy since the start of the pandemic.
Substantial testing and genomic sequencing of confirmed infections
are crucial to tracking and fighting the pandemic, especially with
the onset of the highly contagious Omicron.
To make matters worse, some Health Ministry databases have been
offline since an apparent ransomware attack on Dec. 10 seriously
hampered the government's ability to gather data from state health
authorities.
"In general, the registration system was bad from the start, and it
got worse with the hacker attack, so we're really under water," said
Gonzalo Vecina, former head of Brazilian health regulator Anvisa and
professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
"We're in the dark," he said.
Despite having the world's third-deadliest outbreak after the United
States and Russia, according to Reuters calculations, Brazil tests
for COVID-19 far less than South American peers.
Over the last seven days, Brazil performed an average 0.23 tests per
1,000 inhabitants, according to statistics compiled by the Our World
in Data website. By contrast, Argentina applied 2.15 tests per 1,000
people in the same period and Uruguay performed 3.88 tests per 1,000
inhabitants.
Demand for tests in Brazil surged during year-end holidays and many
pharmacies and clinics ran out of kits. Inventory had dwindled as
vaccination advanced in the country and cases fell.
'AN EXPRESSIVE INCREASE'
Despite limited data sources, COVID-19 cases are clearly rising in
Brazil.
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 In Rio de Janeiro, the rolling
seven-day average of confirmed cases jumped more
than 2,000% since mid-December to 398 on Monday.
"We are seeing an expressive increase in the number of cases,
dealing with patients and people in everyday life. And this increase
is happening in the places where Omicron has been detected," said
Esper Kallas, a doctor specialized in infectious diseases and
professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
The Health Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on how
the cyberattack affected monitoring of the pandemic. Health Minister
Marcelo Queiroga has said that data is being collected but not made
public.
The ministry's website was back online this week, but with numbers
only through early December, before it was hacked.
Brazil has so far verified just 265 Omicron cases since late
November, according to the ministry. Extensive sequencing in other
countries showed Omicron quickly became the dominant variant,
causing cases to surge in a matter of days.
The hope, experts say, is that Omicron does not seem as lethal as
previous variants and its death toll may be limited in Brazil, where
a vaccination campaign has inoculated about two thirds of the
population and booster shots are available.
(Reporting by Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro and Ricardo Brito in
Brasilia; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Brad Haynes and
Aurora Ellis)
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