Folha de S.Paulo, in its report on Monday, the 18th, highlighted the efforts of the Ministry of Health to manipulate the real data on dengue in Brazil. The article not only denounced the distortion of information to reduce the impact of the disease, but also highlighted that the department exaggerates the announcement of transfers to states and municipalities in response to the health emergency.
In 2024, the country has already surpassed the number of probable cases of dengue recorded in the previous year, with 1.6 million cases. During the first two and a half months of the year, 513 deaths were recorded.
The ministry argues that the lethality of the disease in 2024 will be less intense than in 2023. However, Folha questions this information. According to the newspaper, the organization is based on data that has not yet been consolidated for comparison, considering that more than 50% of deaths are still under investigation.
“The fatality rate, at 0.3% of cases, is still less than half of last year (0.7%), despite a slight increase compared to last week (0.2%)”, informed the minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, on social media. “We are taking better care of cases, and people are more aware of the warning signs.”
Folha reports that in 2023, 1,094 deaths were confirmed compared to 1.6 million probable cases. On Friday, the 15th, Brazil surpassed the previous year’s probable cases, recording 513 confirmed deaths. There are still 903 cases under investigation.
Therefore, if the lethality rate in 2024 was determined by the sum of deaths under investigation, it would be higher than that in 2023.
Epidemiologist Condemns Statement by the Minister of Health on Dengue
According to Wanderson de Oliveira, an epidemiologist who served as national secretary of Health Surveillance at the Ministry of Health from 2019 to 2020, the minister’s post was “very unfortunate”. He believes the message is insensitive and gives the impression of being related to statistics. “For anyone who has lost a loved one, the lethality rate is 100%,” Oliveira told Folha.
The epidemiology specialist also criticizes the delay in updating “microdata”. This creates obstacles for researchers to accurately monitor the situation in the country, states and municipalities.
The death investigation process is careful and time-consuming, depending on the collaboration of 5,570 municipalities, as stated by the Ministry of Health.
Budget
The ministry announced that it had increased the financial reserve to combat health emergencies, including “dengue”, to R$1.5 billion. However, this amount is not yet within your budget.
Only around R$60 million of the total budget was released by the ministry one month after the announcement. The information is from Revista Oeste.
