Brazil’s Covid CPI: Health Secretary contradicts Pazuello, confirms early treatment with Chloroquine

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Parliamentary Investigative Committee known as “Covid CPI” on Tuesday, May 25, heard the Ministry of Health’s Secretary of Work and Health Education Management Mayra Pinheiro.

In almost 7 hours of testimony, the official, known as “Captain Chloroquine,” denied having been ordered to prescribe the use of drugs with no proven efficacy for Covid-19, and once again advocated “early treatment.”

Mayra honored her nickname in the several times she spoke about the “direction” of chloroquine use, but made it clear that “captain” is not the appropriate term to refer to her. “I don’t think the term is appropriate, because I am not a military career officer. I am a doctor, respected in my condition. So, I prefer to be referred to as ‘Doctor Mayra Pinheiro,'” she said.

Twice, the secretary contradicted statements made by ex-minister of health Eduardo Pazuello in a deposition last week. First, by saying that the TrateCov app, contrary to what the general claimed, had not been hacked. Then, about the date when the Ministry learned about the oxygen shortage in Manaus – according to her, it was January 8, not January 10, as Pazuello stated.

The situation that occurred in Manaus early in the year was one of the issues addressed during the deposition, despite the habeas corpus granted to Mayra by Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, allowing her not to answer questions on the matter in order not to incriminate herself.

Chloroquine and early treatment

Mayra said that the Ministry of Health never “prescribed treatments for Covid,” but “directed” the use of chloroquine. An advisory note was created “where we established safe doses so that doctors could use drugs, with patients’ consent, according to their free will,” she said.

“The guidance is for all Brazilian doctors, not only for Manaus,” she said, when asked by the CPI rapporteur, Senator Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), if there has been an indication for early treatment in Amazonas. “I uphold the advice, as a doctor, that we should use all possible resources to save lives,” stressed the secretary.

Mayra insisted that chloroquine has an “antiviral” action and was challenged by senator Otto Alencar (PSD-BA), who is a doctor.

“Hydroxychloroquine is not an antiviral in any solid study in the world,” said the legislator. “It is an antiparasitic. There is no medication that can prevent infection with the virus. How could they now contend that hydroxychloroquine can prevent a person from becoming infected with the coronavirus? It’s absurd,” continued Alencar.

Oxygen shortage in Manaus

Mayra said that she had not been advised of a risk of oxygen shortage during her visit to Manaus between January 3 and 5. “There was no awareness that there would be a shortage,” she said. According to her, the government learned about the problem on January 8, not January 10, as Pazuello said in testimony to the CPI. “The minister was aware of the oxygen shortage in Manaus on January 8, I believe,” she said.

On that date, Pazuello asked her why she had failed to report the issue during her trip to the state. The secretary replied that she had not been so informed. “I confirmed the information with the state health secretary, asking: ‘Secretary, why, during my prospecting period, wasn’t I informed?’ He said: ‘Because we didn’t even know’,” Mayra recounted.

The Amazonas Health Secretariat says it contacted the Ministry of Health on January 7 to alert about the imminent oxygen shortage in the state. Mayra said the Ministry was not to blame for the collapse. “No, no responsibility. The responsibility lies with the disease, it’s the virus, senator, not the Ministry of Health,” Pinheiro said.

TrateCov App

Mayra confirmed that the TrateCov app, which recommended drugs with no proven efficacy, such as chloroquine and ivermectin, to people with symptoms of Covid-19, was developed by the Ministry’s staff. “My department’s staff designed the platform,” she said, although she did not specify who proposed the idea.

The secretary denied that the app had been hacked, as Pazuello claimed in testimony to the CPI. What happened was an “undue extraction of data,” she said. “All of us lay people, the first thing we think of whenever we hear that someone invaded a device is to call it hacking,” she justified.

According to Mayra, the journalist who accessed the system “could not” alter it. “The system is secure, he couldn’t hack it,” she said. “He made a copy of the initial cover of this platform, uploaded it onto his social networks, and began to make simulations beyond any epidemiological context, thereby harming society,” the secretary said.

Pazuello had claimed that there were changes and that this would be the reason to remove the app. When asked about the discrepancies between testimonies, Mayra said that the program was suspended because of the investigation on data extraction.

Herd immunity and lockdown

“I have never advocated herd immunity,” Mayra stated. “I think the herd effect can not be used indiscriminately for populations, because it is impossible for us to predict how much of the population needs to be exposed in order to achieve that benefit. So, this could result in many deaths,” she said.

For the secretary, “it is extremely dangerous” to induce immunity through the herd effect. “For large populations, you don’t know how many people will need to be subjected to that kind of theory, and it may result in thousands of deaths. So I do not generally agree with that. In small population groups, it can be done,” she explained.

Source: Exame