MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2021) The Brazilian rainforest city of Manaus saw its health care system collapse in the first weeks of January and is suffering from severe shortages of oxygen for coronavirus patients, a health charity said Thursday.
"The city's capacity to produce oxygen is running at less than a third of the current needs, leaving some hospitals unable to ventilate patients and reportedly resulting in people dying of asphyxiation," Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.
Manaus, the capital of Brazil's Amazonas state, has been inundated with patients in severe condition, the charity said, leaving the rest of the towns unable to refer their patients to better-equipped facilities.
Pierre Van Heddegem, the MSF head of mission for Brazil, said three patients who had a chance to survive lost their lives in the upstream town of Tefe last week because they could not be flown to Manaus for treatment.
The town has no oxygen generators to refill the cylinders and relies on Manaus to recharge them. With no such option, local hospitals will run out of oxygen in two days if admissions continue at the same pace, Van Heddegem said.
