The Secretary of the Department of Health (DS), Carlos Mellado López, confirmed that two new variants of SARS-CoV-2, listed as variants of interest, were identified on the Island.
The secretary has assured that they are being monitored by the DS epidemiology team and that, so far, the vaccines are protecting against the three variants found on the Island.
The two new variants of interest identified in Puerto Rico are: the Brazilian variant P.2 and the California variant B.1.429, these two variants add to the British variant B.1.1.7 which was confirmed in February.
“We are monitoring the identified cases so that we can treat them effectively. Viruses are prone to mutations, as has happened with the flu virus that changes every year, so the SARS virus “CoV-2 is no exception. The important thing at the moment is not to lower our guard and continue to take care of us,” Mellado said after calling for calm in the cases identified.
The case identified with the Brazilian variant P.2 is a woman between 40 and 49 years old. Meanwhile, two patients from Puerto Rico were identified with the California variant B.1.429 and the cases are still under investigation.
The Department of Public Health Epidemiology of the DS, has the collaboration of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan (CDC) and Ponce Health Sciences University (PHSU ). In addition, three laboratories on the island: Quest, LabCorp and Illumina, send samples to the CDC in Atlanta to sequence and maintain molecular surveillance.
According to the doctor, a variant of concern is when the virus has changes that make it have particular characteristics, for example, be more transmissible and therefore generate more cases of COVID-19. The variants of interest have not yet accumulated the number of changes needed to become a variant of concern, but they do have some of these characteristics, and therefore remain monitored.
The Department of Health confirmed on February 15 variant B.1.1.7, also known as the British variant. The same was obtained from a patient not resident in Puerto Rico with a history of travel to a foreign country. On 24 February, the DS reported the identification of two additional patients with the British variant, the cases unrelated to each other. While four of the six new cases are people from the same conglomerate. All were symptomatic and none required hospitalization.
The secretary called on the public to, in addition to vaccinating when it is their turn, continue with preventive measures that include the use of masks, hand washing and physical distancing. “Vaccination is now more important than ever. The data indicate that vaccines still protect against COVID-19 and the virus variants that cause it,” the Health Secretary stressed.