Dataset Information

Underreporting of Death by COVID-19 in Brazil's Second Most Populous State.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic brings to light the reality of the Brazilian health system. The underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in the state of Minas Gerais (MG), where the second largest population of the country is concentrated, reveals government unpreparedness, as there is a low capacity of testing in the population, which prevents the real understanding of the general panorama of SARS-CoV-2 dissemination. The goals of this research are to analyze the causes of deaths in different Brazilian government databases (Civil Registry Transparency Portal and InfoGripe) and to assess whether there are sub-records showing an unexpected increase in the frequency of deaths from causes clinically similar to COVID-19. A descriptive and quantitative analysis of the number of deaths by COVID-19 and similar causes was performed in different databases. Our results demonstrate that different official sources had a discrepancy of 109.45% between these data referring to the same period. There was also a 758.57% increase in SARI deaths in 2020, when compared to the average of previous years. Finally, it was shown that there was an increase in the rate of pneumonia and respiratory insufficiency (RI) by 6.34 and 6.25%, respectively. In conclusion, there is an underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in MG due to the unexplained excess of deaths caused by SARI, respiratory insufficiency, and pneumonia compared to previous years.

SUBMITTER: Alves THE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7769942 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Underreporting of Death by COVID-19 in Brazil's Second Most Populous State.

Alves Thiago Henrique Evangelista THE de Souza Tafarel Andrade TA Silva Samyla de Almeida SA Ramos Nayani Alves NA de Oliveira Stefan Vilges SV

Frontiers in public health 20201215

The COVID-19 pandemic brings to light the reality of the Brazilian health system. The underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in the state of Minas Gerais (MG), where the second largest population of the country is concentrated, reveals government unpreparedness, as there is a low capacity of testing in the population, which prevents the real understanding of the general panorama of SARS-CoV-2 dissemination. The goals of this research are to analyze the causes of deaths in different Brazilian governme ...[more]

PMID: 33384978

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Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to affect all individuals, however in a heterogeneous way. In this sense, identifying specificities of each location is essential to minimize the damage caused by the disease. Therefore, the aim of this research was to assess the vulnerability of 853 municipalities in the second most populous state in Brazil, Minas Gerais (MG), in order to direct public policies. An epidemiological study was carried out based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) using indicators with some relation to the process of illness and death caused by COVID-19. The indicators were selected by a literature search and categorized into: demographic, social, economic, health infrastructure, population at risk and epidemiological. The variables were collected in Brazilian government databases at the municipal level and evaluated according to MCDA, through the Program to Support Decision Making based on Indicators (PRADIN). Based on this approach, the study performed simulations by category of indicators and a general simulation that allowed to divide the municipalities into groups of 1-5, with 1 being the least vulnerable and 5 being the most vulnerable. The groupings of municipalities were exposed in their respective mesoregions of MG in a thematic map, using the software Tabwin 32. The results revealed that the mesoregion of Norte de Minas stands out with more than 40% of its municipalities belonging to group 5, according to economic, social and health infrastructure indicators. Similarly, the Jequitinhonha mesoregion exhibited almost 60% of the municipalities in this group for economic and health infrastructure indicators. For demographic and epidemiological criteria, the Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte was the most vulnerable mesoregion, with 42.9 and 26.7% of the municipalities in group 5, respectively. Considering the presence of a population at risk, Zona da Mata reported 42.3% of the municipalities in the most vulnerable group. In the joint analysis of data, the Jequitinhonha, Vale do Mucuri and Vale do Rio Doce mesoregions were the most vulnerable in the state of MG. Thus, through the outlined profile, the present study proved how socioeconomic diversity affects the vulnerability of the municipalities to face COVID-19 outbreak, highlighting the need for interventions directed to each reality.

Project description:Background Underreporting cases of infectious diseases poses a major challenge in the analysis of their epidemiological characteristics and dynamical aspects. Without accurate numerical estimates it is difficult to precisely quantify the proportions of severe and critical cases, as well as the mortality rate. Such estimates can be provided for instance by testing the presence of the virus. However, during an ongoing epidemic, such tests’ implementation is a daunting task. This work addresses this issue by presenting a methodology to estimate underreported infections based on approximations of the stable rates of hospitalization and death. Methods We present a novel methodology for the stable rate estimation of hospitalization and death related to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) using publicly available reports from various distinct communities. These rates are then used to estimate underreported infections on the corresponding areas by making use of reported daily hospitalizations and deaths. The impact of underreporting infections on vaccination strategies is estimated under different disease-transmission scenarios using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Removed-like (SEIR) epidemiological model. Results For the considered locations, during the period of study, the estimations suggest that the number of infected individuals could reach 30% of the population of these places, representing, in some cases, more than six times the observed numbers. These results are in close agreement with estimates from independent seroprevalence studies, thus providing a strong validation of the proposed methodology. Moreover, the presence of large numbers of underreported infections can reduce the perceived impact of vaccination strategies in reducing rates of mortality and hospitalization. Conclusions pBy using the proposed methodology and employing a judiciously chosen data analysis implementation, we estimate COVID-19 underreporting from publicly available data. This leads to a powerful way of quantifying underreporting impact on the efficacy of vaccination strategies. As a byproduct, we evaluate the impact of underreporting in the designing of vaccination strategies. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12879-021-06780-7.

Dataset Information

Underreporting of Death by COVID-19 in Brazil's Second Most Populous State.

Publications

Underreporting of Death by COVID-19 in Brazil's Second Most Populous State.

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