How Brazil became South America’s Covid-19 hotspot

Richard Parker

According to Richard Parker, Director and President of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), “Brazil should be better positioned to deal with large health threats than many other low and middle-income countries,” says Parker. “It was always going to be a serious spread, but it didn’t have to be this way”.

As the first large country with high indices of poverty and socioeconomic marginalisation to receive the coronavirus it was always going to hit Brazil hard, say global health experts.

Daily fatalities are averaging around a thousand a day and some studies suggest a lack of testing means the actual number of Covid-19 cases could be as many as seven times higher.