Amazonas’ capital Manaus, in Brazil, has taken action to provide remote medical care during the emergency by COVID-19.
In 2002 the Brazilian Council of Telemedicine and Telehealth was created as an agency that promotes the use of new technologies for health care. Over the years, telehealth has become relevant in Brazil until it is considered within local and federal laws and the creation of regulatory bodies.
Telemedicine is by the Federal Medical Council. Currently during the pandemic there were cases in specific locations where telemedicine was applied as an alternative strategy in field hospitals and ICU.
Manaus capital of the state of Amazonas, one of the states with the highest number of contagions in Brazil, implemented telemedicine services in July. It was a teleconsulting pilot project, regulated by the State Health Ministry.
Remote consultation included medical specialties in general and pediatric orthopedics, cardiology, rheumatology, endocrinology, neurology -general and pediatric-, pneumology, proctology, gastroenterologist, urology and vascular surgery.
The system works through appointment scheduling through the Regulatory System (Sireg), and its objective has been to provide healthcare assists in the specialties that are most demanded, as explained by Simone Papaiz, the Secretary of Health of Amazonas.
Subsequently, even in the emergency by COVID-19, the mayor of Manaus decreed the promulgation of Law No. 2.647, published in the Official Gazette of the Municipality that formalizes and approves the use of telemedicine to pay health care:
"This Law authorizes the use of telemedicine in any health activity for the duration of the crisis caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). Telemedicine, among others, means the exercise of technology-mediated medicine for the purposes of care, research, disease prevention, injury and health promotion."
Measures for telemedicine by local governments, as has also happened in the city of Rio and now Manaus, or at the state level as in Amazonas, represent a significant advance for telemedicine in Brazil, which also has a regulatory body.
