A first case of infection with the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus has been detected in Toronto, health authorities in Canada's largest city announced on Sunday (February 7).
The “P.1 variant” of the coronavirus was detected in a Toronto resident who recently traveled to Brazil and who is hospitalized, Metropolitan Ontario Public Health said in a statement.
This variant has already been spotted in Europe (Germany, France and Spain) as well as in Brazil, Colombia and the United States.
Read also: Covid-19: when and how are new variants detected?
Toronto Public Health also announced a first infection with the South African variant, also a source
of "concern"
, in a person who has not traveled recently and has not had known contact with a traveler.
Several variants detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil have worried the international community for a few weeks, which is particularly wondering about their contagiousness and the effectiveness of vaccines against them.
The questions are particularly pronounced for a so-called E484K mutation, common to the South African and Brazilian variants.
The city of Toronto has 27 cases of these
"worrying"
variants
, the statement said.
Read also: Covid-19: the weight of coronavirus variants reaches 21% in France
In Canada, the first cases of the British variant of the coronavirus were detected at the end of December, already in the Toronto area.
The discovery had resulted in the suspension of all flights from the UK for more than two weeks.
Canada, a country of 38 million inhabitants, had more than 800,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 20,000 deaths on Sunday.
