03/25/2021 7:31 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 03/25/2021 7:31 PM
A study in wastewater from the tourist city of Florianópolis confirmed that the
Covid 19
virus
circulated
freely
in
Brazil
and unnoticed a month before the first official cases of sick from the new coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Published by the journal
Science of the Total Environment,
the investigation found the presence of Covid
between November 19 and 27,
2019,
three months before the first infected in the South American country was confirmed.
Coordinated by the microbiology laboratory of the University of Burgos, in partnership with the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the research is
the first description
of the presence of RNA of the virus worldwide.
"This discovery in Florianópolis, together with other findings made in Paris, Milan and Barcelona, shows that the virus was circulating before we realized that we had a problem," the coordinator of the investigation, Alfonso David Rodríguez, told Radio France International. Lazarus.
For this researcher, the finding does not affect what has been scientifically proven about the traceability of Sars-Cov-2: it is
a virus of animal origin, not created in the laboratory
, that directly or indirectly jumped to humans in the locality from Wuhan, in central China.
A protest in Rio de Janeiro, this Wednesday, against the policy of the government of Jair Bolsonaro in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo: BLOOMBERG
The importance of wastewater
The research also shows the enormous interest of
wastewater as an early warning tool
for the non-invasive presence of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
"This is not an isolated case, says Rodriguez Lázaro, adding:" Our study was done on wastewater and found that there were a large number of people who were excreting the virus in Florianópolis, the Brazilian region of Santa Catarina, long before the first cases of contagion will be reported in Brazil ”.
Similarly, other studies have shown that the virus circulated in Spain, France or Italy before the first Covid-19 patients were detected in those countries.
The expert points out that, although it is a respiratory virus, a high number of patients present diarrhea as a symptom of the infection and the excretion of the virus is also very high: a patient can eliminate up to one billion particles per thousand liters of diarrhea, he said. .
The virus stalks and puts pressure on Jair Bolsonaro
With an average of almost 2,300 deaths a day, Brazil faces
the most critical phase of the
coronavirus
pandemic
without a horizon for improvement in the short term, while pressure grows on President Jair Bolsonaro to solve a drama that has put hospitals in the dark. in suspense.
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, increasingly pressured by the advance of the virus.
Photo: AFP
The country, which surpassed the 300,000 death barrier on Tuesday, is currently the place on the planet where most people die from covid-19 per day, well above the United States (1,024) and Mexico (560), which appear just behind , according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
With
the public health system almost collapsed
and the reserves of medicines for the most serious patients at a low level, Bolsonaro complained on Thursday that the coronavirus crisis overshadowed the actions of his government in other areas.
"The government is working, but it does not appear, only one issue appears," the president told a group of followers at the entrance of the Alvorada Palace, his official residence in Brasilia, alluding to the pandemic.
Almost in parallel, Vice President Hamilton Mourao acknowledged in statements to journalists that the death toll "has already exceeded the limits of common sense."
Meanwhile, the new Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, visited several hospitals in San Pablo this Thursday in an attempt to give a new image after the erratic management of his predecessor, Army General Eduardo Pazuello, who is being investigated by the Justice for alleged "omissions" in the fight against the pandemic.
On the other hand, in São Paulo, the Mayor's Office announced on Thursday the installation of
19 oxygen plants to guarantee supply to
the city's
hospitals
, whose reserves were beginning to run low due to the sharp increase in revenues from coronavirus.
Source: RFI and EFE
CB
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