09/12/2021 7:17 PM
Clarín.com
Cities
Updated 09/12/2021 7:17 PM
This Sunday's agenda was focused on the Simultaneous and Compulsory Open Primaries (PASO) and the new health protocol associated with these elections, but the Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Fernán Quirós, must also refer to a situation that worries in the City of Buenos Aires: the Covid outbreak detected in the Belgrano headquarters of the ORT school, which already includes three students infected with the virus in its Delta variant.
"We are doing the epidemiological investigation," the minister told the media after a breakfast with the Buenos Aires candidates of Together for Change and when asked about the health problem that affects the school.
The report, Quirós indicated, will reliably determine the number of cases of the variant among those infected.
Until the afternoon of this Sunday, three students between seven and nine years old had tested positive for the Delta variant of coronavirus.
But the outbreak
extended to at least 43 elementary school students and a teacher
who also teaches high school.
The official explained that the other 40 boys with symptoms underwent the PCR test, which "is under study (for sequencing) in Malbrán and in the Children's Hospital."
Ort de Belgrano School.
Photo Federico Lopez Claro
"We have not finished the investigation yet, but throughout the day we will have," he added.
But during the afternoon of this Sunday,
Clarín
communicated with the Buenos Aires Health area and with the Malbrán Institute and did not receive a response regarding when the analysis would end.
Nor could Migrations report whether or not there was a contagion link with a traveler who had returned to the country in the outbreak.
Confirmation of the three cases arrived on Saturday through the Malbrán Institute.
In a statement it was reported that the sequencing study had been carried out in the Virology laboratory of the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital, central node of the PAIS Consortium, a group created to study the genetic evolution of the coronavirus and monitor which variants circulate.
The mechanics were like this: the students' positive PCRs were sent to the Children's Hospital laboratory.
There, a partial analysis was made of the Spike protein, where the virus binds to the cellular receptor, and it was identified that there was a very high probability that it was Delta.
To complete the study, the samples were referred to the laboratory of the Anlis-Malbrán institute for complete sequencing.
Delta
is the most contagious variant
that has been detected to date in the world.
Preliminary studies show that it is 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant (detected in the UK), which was already 65% more transmissible than the original coronavirus.
In the students' samples, a common mutation (2049G> A) was also found, which could indicate a shared source of contagion.
Ort de Belgrano School.
Photo Federico Lopez Claro.
From the ministries of Health and Education of the City they insisted that it is
a specific outbreak
, which is still being analyzed to find out how it originated.
And that "in no way" they plan to suspend the presence for this reason.
They also highlighted that the Buenos Aires epidemiological situation is the best in the historical series and the positivity is low.
According to official data, since the beginning of the face-to-face classes, only 1.7% of the students were infected, while among teachers, positive cases reached 6.7%.
EMJ
Look also
Fernán Quirós confirmed three cases of the Delta variant in the ORT school in Belgrano
After 461 days, less than a thousand daily cases of coronavirus were reported in Argentina
