The spread of COVID-19 in Brazil overwhelmed the health systems in all the country’s regions, particularly in areas where they were already fragile, according to a collaborative effort involving the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation, the University of Sao Paulo, the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the D’Or Institute of Research and Education and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. The findings, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, reveal that a large percentage of COVID-19 patients that were hospitalized in Brazil required intensive care and respiratory support, and many did not survive.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put an enormous strain on healthcare systems across the world by increasing the demand for healthcare professionals and the need for beds in intensive care units and respiratory support such as ventilators. However, the mortality rate among confirmed cases has greatly