REPORTAGE
As Europe continues its deconfinement, Latin America is hit hard by the new coronavirus. "The situation is catastrophic in Brazil for both health and political reasons," says Europe 1 Didier Pittet, infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist at the Geneva University Hospitals, expert for the WHO. "We know that it is catastrophic in Peru, in Chile, which nevertheless has a relatively well organized health system. It was a real disaster in Ecuador, as we saw with the events in Guayaquil."
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In Peru, at dawn, dozens of city dwellers wait on the sidewalks. In the stores everyone is looking for oxygen bottles, the only chance of survival for their infected relatives: hospitals are saturated and suffer from shortages. "A horror film", even describes the staff contacted by Europe 1. "The virus does not stop at borders and health systems, when they are precarious, suffer very quickly from the situation, in addition to the situations in which diagnostic capacities are unfortunately not always very well established. So we often miss the beginning of the epidemic ", decrypts Didier Pittet. "The epidemic curve is, in general, at least fifteen days behind events, so when you fall behind, you don't catch up."
Lack of tests
A "failure" which often lies in the absence of screening. In Brazil, a country heavily affected by the new coronavirus with 37,300 deaths, the lack of tests is glaring. "The number of confirmed cases, which have been tested, is 710,887 cases", announces Marie-Christine Duniau, medical advisor to the Consulate General of France. "This is a figure which does not reflect reality, because we test very little here. We carried out 990,000 tests for a population of 211 million inhabitants". She describes a catastrophic situation and a two-tier health system. Private hospitals are well equipped but inaccessible to the population.
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The demographic situation of the country and the distribution of inhabitants throughout the territory of the country also plays against it. "The worst is in the Amazon," says Marie-Christine Duniau, where health authorities are struggling to identify the affected populations. "At the beginning, the epidemic was really in town, it was brought by people who came from Europe or the United States. Now it is moving towards the periphery, inland."
The social emergency for the populations
In Latin America, health issues are compounded by social and economic consequences. "We see street vendors, people who go out to buy fruit and vegetables," says Claire, a French woman living in Cuzco, the former capital of the Incas, in Peru. "The majority of residents live in the informal sector, if people don't go out to work, they have no income. It's survival too. It's horrible to see that they have nothing left Maybe they are not aware of the risk they are taking, but their urgency is hunger. "
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With the health crisis, 40% of Peruvians lost all of their income. In Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, hunger riots break out between police officers and residents of poor neighborhoods without money to eat. "In Brazil, there are about 13 million people living in the favelas, and these people have to eat too. We have to find systems so that people can still eat. And we don't have to social, health and economic problems at the same time ", underlines Didier Pittet.