SIG COVID 19 BR, created by emergency by the University Telemedicine Network (RUTE) to deepen the discussion of the new coronavirus, gathers the best specialists in fighting the disease in the same teleconference room, doctors and researchers. The exchange of knowledge among Health Professionals from Brazil and countries like China, Italy, Israel and the USA have provided a rich lesson to all participants.

The SIG COVID 19 BR  web conferences have been gathering researchers and interested from all Brazilian states and different countries, with a joint and challenging mission: to face the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which threatens to take lives and collapse health systems around the world. Like the etiological agent, the new coronavirus affects people indiscriminately in all places, and the search for way to combat must also be integrated and global.

Luiz Ary Messina, national coordinator of the University Telemedicine Network (RUTE), coordinated by the National Education and Research Network (RNP), points out that in this time of pandemic, the serious debate, at high scientific level, including with speakers from other countries, is even more important. “SIG gathers a pool of specialists who are working on the area and report the scientific discoveries and exchange experience of fight against the disease. For the SIG case report, rooms are full, and it enables sharing of information through a webinar, which remains available to other professionals”, he reports.

The coordinator also points out that other initiatives, such as lectures about Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, that will be held until the end of April, integrate the efforts to contain the disease based ion digital media, highlighting the Virus Network MCTIC, created recently by a Ministry ordinance, which will gather specialists about vaccines, drugs and other topics in the combat to Covid-19 as of next week”, he completes.

So far, seven SIG COVID 19 meetings were held, all with rooms filled by the professionals. Dr Milton Steinman, from HIA Einstein opened the session at the first event and passed the word to Prof. Elhanan Bar-On MD, MPH, Director of The Israel Center for Disaster Medicine and Humanitarian Response. Among the different subjects of interest of the following meetings, the nurse Mariana de Jesus Meszaros, master´s degree student, responsible for Continued Education Nursing Section of Hospital das Clínicas da Unicamp (HC-Unicamp), spoke about the importance of the proper and conscious use of Personal Protection Equipment by health professionals and other workers, who act in units on the front line of the combat to the epidemic; the radiologist from Rio Grande do Sul Fabiane Barbosa, interventionist in the Niguarda Hospital, in Milan, situated in Lombardia, a region with the highest number of cases of the disease and where expressive number of deaths was recorded, provided an emotive report of the surge of the disease; the radiologist Dr. Rafael Grando, from the team of Hospital Moinhos de Vento (HMV) in Porto Alegre, RS, showed a collection of radiologic images, which identify the patient as holder of the new coronavirus; Prof. Dr. Antonio Marttos, from University of Miami and who lives in the USA for more than 15 years, approached the importance of the use of the virtual tool as a means of knowledge, information and experience exchange in this time of combat to the pandemic; Dr. Ricardo Affonso Ferreira and Dr. Gustavo Pereira Fraga approached the Emergency Assistance to Covid-19 to help in the flow of patients at HC-Unicamp. The next topic will be testing, presented by professional from FioCruz.

Global challenge requires integrated facing

Dr. Evelyn Eisenstein, one of the coordinators of SIG COVID 19 BR, says that, between the moment the idea came (3/19) and the first web conference, on 3/23, no more than one week had passed. “Sharing of experiences in the middle of the pandemic is the most efficient way to reduce damage”, she said. “SIG enables famous professionals, working on the front line of the combat to the disease, to transmit knowledge horizontally”, the professor from Uerj said, who points out the non-ideological character of the lectures.  “More than ever, now it is the time to use technology in our favor”.

Dr. Gustavo Fraga, trauma surgery professor at Unicamp (SP), tells that the positive experience of articulation of a telemedicine network to treat the victims of Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, weighed favorably in the creation of Sig COVID19. “The specific teams are brought by national and international professionals, all of highest degree and leadership in their universities”, he told, he evaluates that the lectures “are helping a lot for each service to organize the fight to the pandemic”.

The SIG Covid-19 Brasil sessions are held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. The meetings are destined to doctors and researchers in the health area.

Learn more about SIG COVID 19 BR