03/29/2021 18:41
Clarín.com
International
Updated 03/29/2021 6:41 PM
The Amazon variant of the coronavirus, known as
P.1
or the Manaus strain
, which is already circulating in Argentina,
has the ability to reinfect those who were already victims of Covid-19,
harbors a double power of contagion and was involuntarily carried to everything Brazil in airliners that transported some 92,000 people until February.
This is revealed by a joint study by scientists from the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
This study joins another by USP and the University of Campinas - it has not yet been reviewed by scientific peers - which indicates that there is resistance of the
Amazonas or P.1 version
to eight patients who were tested with the CoronaVac vaccine, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, acquired by the Butantan Institute of Brazil and the most applied in the country to stop the pandemic.
The truth is that the second wave of coronavirus in Brazil, with more than 3,000 deaths a day,
is linked to the explosion and spread of this variant
, which according to the new Brazilian-British study, emerged in Manaus, capital of Amazonas, in November.
Burials without pause in the cemeteries of Brazil.
Photo: AP
Researchers from the Brazil-UK Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (Cadde) reported that the variant P.1.
it is between 1.4 and 2.2 times more transmissible than the strains that preceded it
, as explained in a statement from the Fundación del Amparo a la Pesquisa del Estado de São Paulo.
The scientists also estimated that in a significant part of the people who are already infected with SARS-CoV-2 - between 25% and 61% -
the new Manaus variant can bypass the immune system and cause a new one. infection.
In these days, Brazil reached 300 thousand deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
Photo: EFE
The city is the largest in the entire South American jungle region, it has an industrial free zone with a large flow of foreigners and only one land route, being that all transport is air and river.
In mid-January it collapsed due to an unprecedented outbreak that caused the lack of oxygen and currently the national government of Jair Bolsonaro is being investigated in the Supreme Court because the Ministry of Health allegedly ignored the alerts from the Amazon health authorities.
“In just weeks, P.1. it became the most prevalent strain
of SARS-CoV-2 in the region ", highlighted the São Paulo State Research Aid Foundation.
Impressive image of the main cemetery of San Pablo.
Photo: AP
The Cadde research group was coordinated by Esther Sabino, from the University of Sao Paulo, and Nuno Faria, from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, based on the genomic analysis of 184 samples of nasopharyngeal secretion from patients diagnosed with Covid - 19 in a laboratory in Manaus between November 2020 and January 2021.
“The message that the data sends is: even those who have had Covid-19 must remain cautious.
The new strain is more transmissible
and can infect even those who already have antibodies to the new coronavirus.
This is what happened in Manaus.
Most of the population already had immunity and even then there was a great epidemic, ”Sabino explained.
The Brazilian drama seems to have no brake.
Photo: AFP
The Amazon variant, the statement said, had a period of rapid molecular evolution and the reasons are unknown.
Spread of the strain
"Several mutations that facilitate the transmission of the virus quickly appeared, something unusual," said the scientist.
Already at the end of January, another study by researchers from the Brazilian state laboratory Fundación Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) had indicated that in individuals infected with P.1.
the viral load in the body can be up to ten times higher.
One of the keys to the known study by the University of São Paulo and Oxford is the dissemination of the new strain to the rest of Brazil: 92,000 people have traveled from Manaus to regions of the country, a third to São Paulo, the largest city of the country and the main international economic center of the territory.
Deaths in Brazil exceed 3,000 per day.
Photo: EFE
In parallel, another study was known that has yet to be reviewed by scientific peers and that refers to the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine applied by Brazil together with that of AstraZeneca.
"
The results suggest that P1 can escape
neutralizing
antibodies
induced by an inactive virus vaccine" such as CoronaVac, said the study, condemned by well-known infectologists on social networks for being a minimal sample but had an impact when published by the newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo.
Source: Télam
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