After Manaus, Pará town faces healthcare collapse amid oxygen shortage

After seeing neighboring state Amazonas plunged into a full-blown coronavirus healthcare collapse last week, the town of Faro, in Pará state, is suffering from its own coronavirus-related chaos. Shortages of beds, oxygen cylinders, and medication in the city’s hospitals have led to a reported six people dying of suffocation in the last 24 hours.

The state of Pará had banned the arrival of boats from Amazonas last week, but experts suggest that a new variant of the coronavirus — largely responsible for the boom in cases in the city of Manaus — has already spread to neighboring regions.

Faro’s situation has become even more concerning due to the fact that the city usually imports oxygen from Manaus, where all available stocks are now being used on the local hospital network. “Both cities are in crisis,” said Faro Mayor Paulo Carvalho. “The demand is bigger than the supply, because production has been compromised.”

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