The Ministry of Health has acknowledged to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office the risk of losing 2.3 million Covid tests. Tests are stored in the repository and will expire this month. The document has been sent to Covid’s CPI.
The Attorney General’s office on Tuesday (11) sent documents to the CPI regarding a confidential investigation into the Federation’s performance in the acquisition and distribution of tests. The investigation is carried out by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal District. The information was published by the newspaper “Folha de Paolo”. TV Globo was also able to access the document.
In one of the documents, the Ministry of Health notified the Public Prosecution Office of the risk of the tests being expired.
“So, analyzing the current scenario, the Ministry of Health has approximately 4.3 million molecular tests in the central repository scheduled for May 2021, taking into account a laboratory network with a combined processing capacity of approximately 1.5 million tests / month and an estimated loss of viability. 2.3 million molecular tests.
The ministry admitted, on Friday (14), that it left 1.7 million tests lose their validity. Each test costs the public treasury 42 BRL.
The ministry said, without providing further details, that the expired tests will be replaced by the supplier, at no cost.
The document reached the CPI at the request of Senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI), one of the Governors who is part of the group.
In November of last year, the number of stranded tests was even greater: nearly 7 million, valid between December and January of this year.
At the request of the ministry, Anvisa agreed to extend the entitlement period by four months, to expire between May and June.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for mass testing as a necessary measure to contain the spread of the disease since the start of the epidemic last year.
Despite successive promises from health ministers, Brazil is one of the countries still experiencing a drop in testing.
Request to stop test delivery
In the same document that was sent to CPI, the Ministry of Health sent a statement, which it sent in June of last year, to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), calling for a temporary halt to the delivery of 4 million tests.
In the document, the portfolio complains that the PAHO “wants to force the ministry to receive the remaining quantity of the referred kits, which have not yet been delivered, totaling 40,000 kits, or a total of 4 million tests, without the ministry’s approval of the delivery schedule.” .
Then the ministry asked to suspend the supply.
“ The request to suspend the supply of inputs is justified due to the low production of kits, overcrowding in the MS warehouse in Guarulhos, the expiration of the kits already in the warehouse (40,000 sets, i.e. 4 million tests), which are scheduled for December 2020 and the lack of DNA extraction tests Ribie, “said vol.
According to the ministry, if there is no stoppage there will be “medium to long-term problems that could generate costs for the Ministry of Health.”
The ministry also said that if there was no downtime, it would have to get rid of the collections by burning.
In response to a question, the Health Ministry did not answer whether it burned down the tests last year, given the lack of space in the shed in Guarulhos.
“Writer. Analyst. Avid travel maven. Devoted twitter guru. Unapologetic pop culture expert. General zombie enthusiast.”
