Ministry of Health predicts that main systems will be restored on Friday

The executive secretary of the Ministry of Health, Rodrigo Cruz, said that the forecast is that by Friday (14) the main systems of the Ministry of Health will be restored.

On December 10, the Ministry of Health suffered a cyberattack that took down information systems for reporting cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as vaccination data.

Cruz said the Ministry of Health has been working in stages. First, it worked to restore data capture systems to be able to receive data from states and municipalities.

He said that this stage ended in December and the folder has received information on deaths, vaccinations and cases of Covid-19.

The other big challenge was working to re-establish systems that make the dissemination of data. At this stage, there are data that are disseminated to states and municipalities. This part is expected to be fully operational on Friday.

He said that the states are already able to access the SI-PNI (Information System of the National Immunization Program), e-SUS Notifica, their own vaccine systems and the laboratory part. The challenge that still exists is a particularity of the SI-PNI.

The other part is to re-establish public data dissemination systems. He said that Open Datasus, which has monitoring data on the pandemic, is one of the great challenges of the portfolio.

“The expectation is that the part of hospitalization, cases, immunization until Friday [seja restabelecida]. Likewise, LocalizaSUS and the Coronavirus Panel. Until Friday, most of the panels for the general public will be resolved”, he informed.

Cruz assessed that the attack was serious, but there was no loss of data.

“The attack happened, it was serious, all the vaccine records, deaths and cases that were in the cloud were deleted. After a work it was verified that the data were not lost. But it takes time to rebuild the systems”, he said.

The senators who were part of the majority group of the CPI da Covid – which acted between April and October of last year – had a virtual meeting on Tuesday night (11) to discuss the installation of a new commission.

There are several issues that parliamentarians believe deserve a thorough investigation, in particular the blackout of data from the Ministry of Health. Members of the majority group of the former CPI suspect that there may have been sabotage by the ministry itself.

“We do suspect that there may have been sabotage. And that is why there is a request for a new CPI”, said Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP), who was vice president of the CPI of Covid and author of the request for the installation of a new commission.

Randolfe believes that the move by the Ministry of Health, announcing that it will restore part of the data, is already a reaction to the actions of Covid CPI members, in particular the request to open a new commission. The senator, however, says that the announcement of the portfolio will not change the intentions of parliamentarians.

“It is something that needs to be investigated, so we will proceed with the collection of signatures to install the new CPI”, completes the parliamentarian.

The virtual meeting was attended by virtually all members of the majority group of the CPI da Covid, who are currently part of the Pandemia Observatory, a parliamentary front installed after the completion of the commission’s work. The most felt absences were Senators Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM) and Tasso Jereissati (PSDB-CE).

The meeting’s participants agreed to hear from experts about the data blackout, in order to subsequently reassess the installation of a new CPI. The meeting with specialists should take place in the last week of January, so that the next actions can be taken in early February, when Congress resumes its activities, with the end of the parliamentary recess.

Randolfe says there was unanimous initial support for the new CPI among the observatory’s members, although some point out that they need to discuss the issue with their parties. On the other hand, the parliamentarians of this group point out that there is already a move by the government to stop the installation of the CPI. They point out that Minister Ciro Nogueira (Casa Civil) has already started to contact senators linked to the government to prevent the signature of the application.

The signatures of 27 of the 81 senators are required for a CPI to be installed.

In addition to the deletion of data, the request that asks for the installation of a new CPI also mentions the need to investigate possible omissions and actions against the vaccination of children between 5 and 11 years old, lack of doses for booster vaccination and also attacks, in particular Jair Bolsonaro, against technicians and directors of Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency).