The Ministry of Health and the management of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic demands from national and subnational governments measures to contain the transmission, as well as the organization of the assistance network for the identification and care of the symptomatic ones. The Brazilian government has taken measures that are largely at variance with the recommendations of international organizations, which have an important influence on the country’s performance in the face of the pandemic. This study aimed to present a contextualization and discuss the performance of the Ministry of Health’s direction, in its relationship with the Presidency of the Republic, in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, through an integrative review of information published in national news portals. Denial measures strongly orchestrated by the Presidency can be seen, which culminated in harmful consequences to the fight against the pandemic: rotation of health ministers, collapse of the care network, weakening of inter-federal relations, delays in vaccination, disregard for Science, fragile testing strategy, opacity of health information, cases of corruption, among others. The main outcome of this action can be summarized in the sad statistics of cases and deaths by COVID-19, reinforcing the fact that we have an ongoing necropolitics in Brazil.

KEYWORDS
Unified Health System; Health policy; Health management; COVID-19