Mariana Saroa de Souza
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados
The Labor Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) has issued a technical note that recognizes Covid-19 as an occupational disease and recommends that doctors ask companies to issue a CAT – Communication of Accident at Work – to employees who contract the virus, as well as for suspected cases.
According to the MPT’s technical note issued at the beginning of December, Covid-19 can be considered an occupational disease when the employee’s contamination occurs as a result of special working conditions, under the terms of article 20, paragraph 2 of Law No. 8.213/91, that is, in exceptional cases.
“Covid-19 is a biological risk that exists in the workplace, and, despite being a pandemic, it does not exclude the employer’s responsibility to identify possible transmitters of the disease in the workplace and the appropriate measures for active search, screening and isolation of cases, with the immediate removal of contacts, to be provided for in the Occupational Health Medical Control Program, prepared under the technical responsibility of the occupational physician, under the terms of item 4.12 (d)of NR 04)”, an excerpt from the MPT’s technical note.
After the technical note was issued, there was a great deal of discussion on the subject, with a statement from the Ministry of Economy, which stressed that Covid-19 will be considered an occupational disease “when the disease results from the special conditions in which the work is carried out and is directly related to it; it may also constitute an accident at work due to an equivalent disease, in the event that the disease comes from accidental contamination of the employee by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the exercise of his activity (article 21, item III, Law no. 8. 213, of 1991); in any case, in which the employee is accidentally contaminated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the exercise of his activity (article 21, item III, Law no. 8. 213, of 1991 ). 213, of 1991); in any of these cases, however, it will be the Federal Medical Expert who will have to technically characterize the identification of the causal link between the work and the disease, and there is no legal presumption in favour of the employee that the contamination constitutes an occupational disease.”
Finally, it is important to note that the adoption of the technical note issued by the Labor Prosecutor’s Office is not mandatory.
