Emilia vexler
03/26/2021 11:51 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 03/26/2021 11:51 AM
In the world of epidemiology there is no place for futurology.
But yes for the projections.
Something that is key in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Through individual cases, data ending in curves and wave expectations is consolidated.
From there come the government announcements, such as the recent suspension of flights from Brazil.
While everything indicates that Argentina is no longer "standing up" due to the start of the second wave of infections,
the Manaus variant of Covid-19 would be the most dangerous for our country
in the coming weeks.
"Manaus is
the most risky
for us because of the proximity we have with Brazil and Uruguay (on the other side of the pond it was found spread across 20 Uruguayan regions, 178 people). Especially with Brazil, which has a dry, difficult border to control, with a lot of round-trip commercial truck traffic.
This makes circulation much more complicated
, "
Angela Gentile, head of Epidemiology at the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital
, explains to
Clarín
.
Faced with the general confusion as to whether the Manaus variant is "more lethal or not" than the British or South African (the other two more worrying), Gentile focuses on its
contagion capacity
.
"If there are more infections from this strain, then there is a greater risk of contagion for the most vulnerable groups in our country, the elderly. Manaus, being more transmissible,
obviously leads to greater lethality
, because we do not have the population of risk still vaccinated, "says Gentile, who is not only an advisor to Alberto Fernández regarding the pandemic but is also a member of the National Commission for Vaccine Safety of Argentina.
The
transmissibility power of
the Manaus variant means that it is
40-50% more contagious
.
"To lower mortality, which is the great objective, at least there should be a balance between the great transmissibility of this variant, the number of people at risk vaccinated and those who could make an epidemiological barrier (by not being infected)," he adds.
Furthermore, it is estimated that this variant is more likely to be reinfected.
"Months ago we said that reinfections were infrequent, but with this variant it is seen that they are more frequent," said infectologist Roberto Debbag, vice president of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.
Relatives of patients infected with Covid-19 face hours of waiting to supply their oxygen cylinders in Manaus.
Photo EFE
Clarín
spoke with the main reference about this variant in Brazil.
Fernando Rosado Spilki, coordinator of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences at the Universidade Feevale.
Like Gentile, he also talks about "up to 50% more transmission capacity."
On mortality in Manaus itself and in that country in general, he says,
"there is still no data on this variant
.
"
The key is that there are no definitions on whether the deaths that occur in people infected by this variant are due to a worsening of the general picture of coronavirus or to not receiving adequate treatment due to
the saturation of the Brazilian health system
.
But, Rosado Spilki clarifies,
that of Manaus is widespread in all regions of Brazil
. "In some states it is the main one, while in others it disputes the position with the P.2 variant of Rio de Janeiro. And we also have the British variant in many states ".
Humberto Debat is a virologist and researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) of Córdoba.
He also takes up the concept of "futurology" in a pandemic, to clarify that there are "multifactorial" situations that would prevent us from being "so predictive" as to how the Manaus variant would hit in the coming weeks.
But it makes a pandemic analogy.
The one with sparks and fire.
"We have sparks from the Manaus variant (cases) that can generate fires (foci)," he says.
But not always a fire is started by a single spark, nor are many sparks always unleashing a fire.
Fire, in a pandemic, would be the establishment of a Covid lineage in a specific place.
The P.1 lineage is the so-called "Manaus variant".
Debat is a member of the PAIS Project (Argentine Interinstitutional Project for SARS-CoV2 genomics), which
sequences viral genomes in our territory
to monitor the entry and establishment of Covid variants.
He says the Manaus variant is
2.5 times more contagious
.
Is it already of
community circulation
in Argentina?
"I can give data that can balance the above, where I explained that predictions cannot be made with such certainty. In the last report we detected the presence of the Manaus variant in three people in our country, but all three had a history of travel or connection epidemiological with whom he had traveled, so they are imported cases ", answers the expert.
But this may change in the next report.
"There are two cases of the British variant, one from the city of Buenos Aires and the other from the AMBA, in which we could not establish any connection with travel or contact with someone who traveled. That is indirect information that would indicate that the British variant is already circulating in the community and
that is 70% more transmissible
. So, it would be a very good candidate to become a concern in our country, regardless of what happens, also or not, with the Manaus variant ", the expert closes.
ACE
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