Scientists warn that the uncontrolled outbreak of coronavirus in Brazil could threaten the global fight to end the pandemic.
The more infectious vaccine variant P1, which appeared there, has already become dominant in most states and there is no sign that it will slow down.
“This information is an atomic bomb,” Dr. Roberto Kraenkel, a biological mathematician at the Covid-19 Observatory in Brazil, told the Washington Post.
– I’m surprised by the levels [of variants] found. The media doesn’t get what that means. All variants of concern are more communicable … and that means an accelerated phase of the epidemic. A disaster. ‘
Already, the variant has been identified as the cause of 15 cases in nine US states.
Fortunately, rising vaccination rates and declining daily infections in the US are helping to stop its outbreak – but this is not the case in Brazil, where ICUs are collapsing to full capacity, while the chaotic launch of the vaccine is struggling to win. terrain.
“No country will be safe if not all countries have controlled their outbreaks,” Dr. Denise Garret, vice president of applied epidemiology at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, told DailyMail.com.
Coronavirus is spreading “uncontrollably” in Brazil, giving rise to a more infectious variant, which reduces the vaccine, known as P1, which has spread to at least 20 countries (pink). As long as the outbreak resonates in South America, the rest of the world could still be vulnerable to new mutants, experts warn
In the US, the P1 variant has not yet become widespread, but if it does, it has the potential to reinfect hundreds of millions of people who are not vaccinated – even if they have had COVID-19 before. Only one new case was detected this month, but it is likely to change
“We can vaccinate as much as we want in the US and we can achieve herd immunity, but as long as we have uncontrollable outbreaks in other countries, the borders will still be open.
“In countries like Brazil, where there are no restrictions and the virus is weakened, it is indeed a good ground for
All viruses move all the time.
Like cancer, the more they spread and make more copies of themselves, the more they move – and the more significant these mutations are.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has begun to move significantly.
But variants began to appear around the globe in late 2020, as growing cases in most countries offered the virus ample opportunities to move.
And the way this was done in Brazil was especially ripe for dangerous variants.
The country had already gone through terrible early waves. Antibody testing suggested that about 76 percent of the heavily hit city of Manaus was infected in October after the first wave of the pandemic there.
This should have given three-quarters of the Amazonian city natural immunity to reinfection.
P1 has been detected in at least nine US states, but is thought to be insufficient in number due to the rare genomic sequencing used to find variants.
He didn’t.
Manaus was stunned by a second wave of infections in January. The devastation reached a new peak, with 100 people dying a day in the city, with two million.
The PI variant was discovered there in December and probably fueled the high rate of infections and, worse, re-infections observed in the city.
Laboratory studies, as well as real-world data, suggest that mutations in a location known as E484K help the virus escape antibodies triggered by previous infection with older variants or vaccines designed to protect against them.
“Immune pressure” encourages these types of mutations.
When viruses face immunity that prevents them from hijacking cellular machines to copy, only strains that have mutations that make them less affected by vaccines survive.
And then it thrives.
“This new strain gets rid of immunity and starts all over again, and is now the predominant offspring in Brazil,” said Dr. Garrett.
Among the US cases of the P1 variant, she said: “Apparently they are low, but make no mistake, this variant is more transmissible” and is probably more widespread than testing for it.
The good news, notes Dr. Garrett, is that vaccines appear to work against the Brazilian version, contrary to early warnings.
The natural immunity against the previous infection seems less resistant against the challenge of the variant.
And with only 10% of Americans fully vaccinated, hundreds of millions of Americans – including the 29 million who already had COVID-19 – could still be vulnerable to the P1 form of the virus.
“It is only a matter of time before there are no control measures. Here [in the U.S.] the good news is that we vaccinate and vaccinate quickly, because we need to vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as possible to try to control this, and so far it seems that these variants do not escape the vaccine, at least for severe diseases and hospitalizations, “said Dr. Garret.
– But there is no guarantee. The virus is evolving rapidly and … if it continues to evolve in other countries, it may eventually be here.
“What is happening in other countries has a real effect on other countries.”
This, she says, is the strongest case for the equitable distribution of vaccines around the globe.
“I understand the nationalism of vaccines – countries want to vaccinate their populations first – but if there is no equitable distribution, there will always be a threat as long as these are countries where the outbreak is still weak, there will always be a threat to the world.”