Peru's Health Minister Victor Zamora on Friday informed that the Unified Health System currently has 939 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds across the country, of which 127 are available. This figure varies according to the demand of COVID-19 patients.
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The Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported 100 ICU beds 40 days ago. Today, we have nearly 1,000. I said we were going to have 1,000 by the end of this month, and no one thought this was going to be possible. There are 127 or 128 beds available, this changes day after day," he indicated.
Zamora affirmed that, in addition to responding effectively to the epidemic, Minsa is making substantial changes, such as the creation of the Unified Health System, which helps counting and organizing the beds in a better way.
"The efforts to confront the epidemic have led to a legislative decree that enables to have a Single Health Information System that allows us to make better decisions," he explained.
The Cabinet member noted that his sector has continued taking molecular tests, in fact, it has just signed an agreement with the
Pan American Health Organization to have between 100,000 and 200,000 tests, while the processing capacity increased to 12,500 per day.
Additionally, he emphasized that the sector went from having one laboratory to having 11 in Lima and regions.
The minister also reported on the strategies applied in the regions.
"In northern Peru, our efforts are focused on the provision of services and, in the south, on the control of community transmission cases," he expressed.
(END) NDP/RMB/MVB
Published: 5/8/2020