The end of recent World Cup edition allowed the Brazilian authorities to draw conclusions about every soccer fan-related issue that could induce a positive or negative outcome of such a huge scale event. Information posted by the World Cup Portal of the Brazilian Federal Government website revealed that 0.2 % out of the total number of 3.5 million fans received medical care. These figures seem in fact a little bit confusing, because the website specifies a total number of 17.072 people who needed help during or between the soccer matches, which is about 0.5 % out of 3.5 million. The 0.2 % corresponds to another value, which reflects the number of people seen by medical personnel at the stadiums only, and only those who were treated on site (6863, the difference between 7055 declared people with health issues during a soccer match and the 192 patients who had to be treated to specialized health care units).
However, these results are much lower than the expected 1-2 % estimates, based on to the track record of previous editions of the World Cup, according to the Brazilian officials. The Minister of Health Arthur Chioro considered that the ability of keeping such issues under control was based on previous experience, like the organization of the famous Carnival in Rio de Janeiro each year, or the FIFA Confederations CUP, hosted by Brazil in 2013. Being aware that they are living in a tropical country, the authorities were expecting that dangerous infectious diseases could be a menace for the tournament: “There were fears of a dengue fever outbreak, cases of Ebola, measles. No such cases were recorded.” declared Minister Chioro. Even better, “there was a 65% reduction of dengue fever related deaths in relation to the same period last year” according to him. Postings on the CDC website warned the travelers about the importance of vaccination, avoiding insect bites, the contact with animals or practicing a “good hand hygiene”, when taking into consideration a trip to Brazil.
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No information regarding serious illnesses or injuries was posted on the Federal Government’s Portal. The overwhelming majority (99.4 %) of the 192 people who were transported to health care facilities “were discharged after being seen by a doctor and medicated”. All the monitoring and health care units coordinated by the Ministry of Health for the World Cup will be operational until July 23th, when the government considers that all tourists and delegation members already left the country.