Brazilian variant: "Allowing the epidemic to grow is to extend the virus's capacity to replicate"

The specificity of his laboratory?

Track the variants, to monitor their progress in the territory and see if new ones emerge.

At the head of the National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses in Lyon (Rhône), Professor Bruno Lina is also a member of the Scientific Council on Covid-19, in charge of enlightening the government on the health crisis.

For this virologist, there is no doubt: the more the number of mutants increases, the more the risk of resistance to vaccination multiplies.

He looks back on their worrying proliferation in Brazil and the devastation they are causing throughout South America.

What do we (really) know today about the Brazilian variant?

PR BRUNO LINA.

That it is transmitted more easily.

But what really sets him apart from the British is his immune escape ability.

Clearly, while we know that vaccination works very well on the English mutant, we see a loss of protection with the Brazilian and South African variants.

How is it progressing in France?

Today, the Brazilian variant is almost non-existent, around 0.5%, according to our latest Flash survey.

South African is a little over 5%.

On the other hand, the progress of the British is very important, it went from 40% to 75% in a few weeks.

France is so "stuffed" with English roots that the Brazilian is unable to settle.

The few introductory cases have not changed the situation, nor caused significant clusters.

We must stay this course, because we see to what extent its development can have an impact on the epidemic.

Do you think of South America, where the number of cases and hospitalizations is skyrocketing?

And especially in Brazil, where the direct link between the total lack of control of the epidemic and the catastrophic situation is obvious.

The hundreds of thousands of infected are fertile ground for the emergence of new variants, because the more a virus multiplies, the more it mutates.

And the more it resists vaccination.

The problem is, these cases are spreading.

What is happening in Chile is the direct consequence of Brazilian politics.

Let's call a spade a spade: when a country refuses to take action to curb a virus, it is responsible for the consequences.

Chile is not precisely a paradox: after Israel and Great Britain, it is the third most vaccinating country, with 37% of the population immunized.

But the epidemic remains out of control ...

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When you read 37% vaccinated, I see the other 63% unimmunized!

For a population to be protected, it is not 37% but 80% to 85% of the vaccinated that it needs.

If you add a vaccine efficacy (

Editor's note: it is the Chinese Sinovac vaccine which is widely administered

) reduced by half because of the Brazilian variant, we fall to less than 20%.

What lessons can be learned here in France?

That every time we allow the epidemic to grow, we expand the virus's ability to replicate.

Let's be clear, we cannot prevent the emergence of variants, but the essential thing is to be able to control them and thus prevent them from becoming an international problem.

With all due respect to sorrowful spirits, this is what we did with the so-called Breton variant, by strengthening the control measures.

Today this episode seems behind us.

READ ALSO>

Covid-19 and variants: are the controls from Brazil sufficient?

Should we toughen the measures for entering France from South America?

Health controls exist, the question would therefore be: should flights be banned?

It would be a way of putting pressure on countries until they prove that they are putting measures in place.

I do not have the answer, it is eminently political.