RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Ministry of Health reported on Thursday, February 27th, that there are 132 suspected cases of coronavirus in Brazil. There are also another 213 notifications that were not analyzed by the ministry’s staff before the daily report was finalized.
On Wednesday, February 26th, the government confirmed the first positive case of coronavirus in Brazil. This is a man who lives in São Paulo, is 61 years old, who came back to Brazil from Italy.
In this new report, no other cases were confirmed. But the number of new suspected cases has reached the highest number since the monitoring began. On Wednesday, they were 20.
According to the executive secretary of the portfolio, João Gabbardo dos Reis, the experts have not had time to examine all the notifications received from the state health secretariats, which is why the number of suspected cases is higher than the 132 included in the report. The executive secretary mentioned some 300 cases.
Gabbardo explained that among the 132 cases under examination, two have already been tested for common respiratory viruses and tested negative. Now they are undergoing specific tests for the coronavirus.
Among the patients under investigation, 121 have a history of traveling to countries where the disease has spread, eight other patients have had contact with suspected cases and three have come in contact with the 61-year-old patient already confirmed with Covid-19.
Suspected cases by states
Across the country, the suspected cases are distributed as follows: São Paulo (55), Rio de Janeiro (nine), Minas Gerais (five), Santa Catarina (eight), Rio Grande do Sul (24), Paraná (five), Distrito Federal (five), Goiás (three), Matro Grosso do Sul (two), Alagoas (one), Bahia (one), Ceará (five), Paraíba (one), Pernambuco (three) and Rio Grande do Norte (four).
Source: G1