The United States Embassy in Brazil announced last Thursday 28 a donation from the American government to deal with the health crisis in Manaus.
The International Development Agency (USAID) has joined the + Unidos group, the platform carrios pela Amazônia and UNA + to form the Juntos pelo Amazonas initiative, which has already raised R $ 300,000 in direct donations and provided protective equipment for health workers in the state in the north of the country.
The program also donated 1.6 million reais to Unidos against Covocr-19, from Fiocruz. According to the embassy, which announced the aid on its Twitter account, “this amount will be used in the construction of oxygen production plants to support public hospitals in the region.”
In addition to US aid, Venezuela has also provided oxygen to help ease the crisis in Manaus. On January 19, five trucks with donations from the neighboring country arrived in the capital of Amazonas.
The trucks, which carried 107,000 m³ of oxygen, traveled more than 1,500 km.
The crisis in Brazil has gained international attention after several patients died from asphyxiation in Manaus and towns in the interior of Amazonas, as well as in towns in western Pará.
When Venezuelan aid arrived, the daily demand in the Amazon was about 76,000 m³ of hospital oxygen, but the supplying companies were unable to produce more than 28,200 m³ per day, i.e. that there was a daily deficit of about 50,000 m³ of oxygen.
Health Minister General Eduardo Pazuello admitted learning of the possibility of a lack of oxygen in the Amazon on January 8, a week before the most serious day of suffocation in state beds. The attorney general’s office asked the minister to explain why he had not acted to ensure the supply of oxygen.