Rio de Janeiro (AFP)

When her son was struck down by Covid-19, Regina Evaristo felt unimaginable pain, like so many Brazilians who have lost loved ones during the pandemic, which has already claimed nearly 100,000 lives in the country.

Alan, a 38-year-old nurse, was young, generous and dynamic. "He loved helping people, he was born to work in emergencies," says Regina Evaristo.

On April 7, he started to have a fever. Fifteen days later he passed away, leaving a nine-year-old baby girl.

Regina couldn't say goodbye to him. Her son was buried within minutes by gravediggers wearing heavy protective suits.

This scene has happened thousands of times in Brazil, the second deadliest country after the United States.

"It's an open wound," Regina Evaristo, a 54-year-old mestizo who heads a charity founded with her son in 2009 in Rio de Janeiro, told AFP.

"We no longer see the person, they simply disappear. It is the pain raised to its maximum power," she continues.

- Abandoned patients -

Alan died on April 22, when Brazil had even fewer than 3,000 deaths from Covid-19.

Instead of giving in to despair, Regina Evaristo let herself be guided by her Christian faith and decided to use her modest association to set up a large-scale operation.

"I had two choices: either I remained in mourning or I used my pain to help other people. I tried to do what Alan wanted," she explains.

Through a donation campaign, she has provided thousands of protective equipment to health professionals, and even packed lunches to hospitals in poor neighborhoods in Rio.

Its objective: to help protect nursing staff. The lack of equipment and resources are, according to her, the cause of her son's death.

A difficult fight in a country where the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro constantly minimizes the virus, this "little flu".

Regina Evaristo, who studied theology and accounting, is used to the misery of the favelas where her association helps the poorest.

But she could never have imagined the nightmarish scenes in saturated public hospitals in the heart of the pandemic.

"I have videos from the hospital where Alan was located showing patients who were abandoned because the nursing staff had no protective equipment. They couldn't even bring them food," he said. -she.

"Many people died alone and abandoned," she laments.

In Brazil, more than 300 nurses have died from Covid-19, one of the worst results in the world, according to the Federal Council of Nurses (Cofen).

Some have recently demonstrated to demand the payment of late wages and denounce the corruption that has misappropriated funds intended for the purchase of equipment or the construction of field hospitals.

"It's not the Covid-19 that killed the most, it's corruption," accuses Regina Evaristo.

- "He liked to help people" -

Alan joined his family at the age of 12. In total, this big-hearted mother adopted ten children. She also had three biologicals, two of whom died, as did her husband.

Regina remembers Alan as a pacifier of the family, always ready to resolve conflicts between siblings.

Alan, a nurse for twenty years, was working in the emergency room of the Carlos Chagas public hospital when the pandemic hit Brazil.

He started to have a fever on April 7, was diagnosed with Covid-19 in the process, but assured his family there was nothing to worry about.

Three days later, he was hospitalized with respiratory problems.

Right before his intubation, Alan called his mother to tell her everything was fine and that he would have his car fixed as soon as he got out of the hospital. It was the last time she spoke to him.

© 2020 AFP