In Diadema, complaints about the failure to carry out tests on patients suspected of having dengue fever or Covid-19 in the municipality’s health units began to reverberate in the City Council. Councilor Márcio Júnior (Podemos) presented a request demanding explanations from Health Secretary Zé Antônio on the matter. According to the parliamentarian, there is an order for teams not to carry out the tests. “Whether the order comes directly from the secretary or the mayor, I don’t know, but I understand that it does”, he suspects.
From January to the end of March, Diadema registered 1,401 cases of autochthonous dengue fever (infections contracted within the city itself), and 51 imported ones, according to data from the Seade Foundation (State Data Analysis System), from the government of São Paulo. Two people have already died in the city from dengue fever. One death is still under investigation.
As councilor Márcio Júnior points out, doctors are not requesting tests, even if patients have symptoms of the disease caused by Aedes aegypti, and when asked they have the answer on the tip of their tongue. “We are prevented,” they say.
The document filed by the parliamentarian asking for explanations from the Secretary of Health should be discussed in the next session, which will be held on Thursday (2). “It is important to know why employees were ordered not to carry out dengue tests and whether the order was due to a change in procedures or whether testing kits were missing,” he said.
The councilor also highlighted that the case is not isolated, and also affects patients with suspected Covid-19.
Contacted by Diário, Diadema City Hall reported in a note that “the municipality declared an emergency situation due to a dengue epidemic, starting March 23, 2024”.
Also according to the statement, the collection of samples for confirmation by serology is suspended “given their lesser usefulness in epidemic contexts”. In this way, the criteria for diagnosis becomes clinical and epidemiological.
In relation to Covid-19, the municipality guarantees that the tests are carried out on “pregnant women and seriously ill patients in Urgent and Emergency care”.
