Epidemiologist Avertino Barreto said Sunday that the lack of investment in the Mozambican health system anticipated the impact of the third wave of the pandemic in Mozambique, noting that if it weren't for the efforts of health professionals the country would be in a critical situation due to the increased number of infections. 

"This could have been avoided, if the investment in health was serious," Avertino Berreto, who is also a member of the scientific commission created to advise the government on decision-making in the face of the pandemic in Mozambique, said in an interview with Lusa. 

For the epidemiologist, the investment disbursed in the last decade for health is not proportional to the growth of Mozambique, which now faces a disease "much more aggressive in terms of transmissibility" when compared to other epidemics that the country faced in the past, especially cholera.  

"We've had other epidemics, and if we talk about records, this disease still doesn't have the disastrous significance as others that I personally have experienced," added the doctor, who has been linked to the health system for more than 40 years, stressing that the main mistake of the Mozambican executive was not having bet on investment in infrastructure and capacity in the country's health sector in recent years.

"Through inability or negligence in investing in public health, we subject a population that is impoverished to having to resort to the private sector, where the costs are enormous and people can't afford it," he said.

Avertino Barreto understands that Mozambique has seen, in the last 12 years, an inversion of values, and today the policies and priorities are no longer focused on people's health.

"There is a whole eagerness and selfishness in a totally degrading thought," warned the doctor, who believes that the country should already have the minimum infrastructure and capacity for a "much more efficient and humane response."

On the other hand, continued the epidemiologist, the commitment and the effort of the health professionals who are in the front line have been fundamental to avoid a worse scenario, at a time when the salaries of this class remain low given the importance of the sector

"There are doctors in Mozambique who live in garages and have no house, but daily and occasionally they don't let people die," added the epidemiologist, who points to the work that has been done by the Polana Caniço Hospital, one of the capital's main hospitals for hospitalizing patients with covid-19, as a regional example of response to the pandemic.

Mozambique, which is in the third wave of covid-19 and recording record numbers of deaths and hospitalizations in recent weeks, has a total of 1,600 deaths and the number of cases is more than 131,000, according to the latest updates.

The Ministry of Health has warned about the possibility of exhausting the hospitalization capacity, having already been registered in Maputo province, which no longer has beds for new patients and has resorted to Maputo city to assist patients in serious condition.

Lusa Agency