Derramamento de óleo bruto na costa brasileira em 2019: emergência em saúde pública em questão
Paulo Gilvane Lopes Pena, Amanda Northcross, Mônica Angelim Gomes de Lima, Rita de Cássia Franco Rêgo
Abstract
A crude oil spill was first identified on the Brazilian coast on August 30, 2019, and has reached 4,334 km of coastline in 11 states of the Northeast and Southeast, with 120 municipalities (counties) and 724 locations, as of November 22, 2019 1 . The disaster is considered the worst oil spill in Brazil's history and one of the largest on record in the world. The sequence of the phenomena cannot be attributed to chance, rather expressing probabilities that increase as a function of an unsustainable development model, environmental crisis, institutional unpreparedness for the prevention of expanded social and technical events, with obsolete legal frameworks that rarely punish the large conglomerates responsible for them, and discriminatory policies against vulnerable populations, among other weaknesses 2 . The scale of the government's response, particularly that of the health sector, must be assessed in order to minimize the population's health problems and organize effective responses, given the potential occurrence of similar phenomena.