The Brazilian variant of the coronavirus, called P1, is little known, but it raises alerts in the world because it is more contagious, which has led several countries to suspend flights from the South American giant, the epicenter of the pandemic.
“The fear is justified, P1 is a more contagious variant and spread very quickly in Brazil, which is a huge country and where the pandemic is out of control,” microbiologist Natalia Pasternak, director of the L, told AFP. ‘Estao Institute of Science.
The P1 emerged last December in the city of Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas, but was only identified as a new variant in January, in Japan, to travelers returning from that northern region of Brazil. .
The variant was also detected in several countries in South America, such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. It also reached the United States, Canada, Germany and France, which on Monday announced the suspension of flights from Brazil as well as other nations.
– Why is it more contagious? –
Like the South African variant, P1 has the E484K mutation, which could cause more infections than other strains, according to some studies, because it requires more antibodies to resist the virus.
It also has numerous variations in the Spike protein, through which the virus enters cells to infect them.
“It’s like he has a master key that allows him to open several doors at the same time,” observes Jesem Orellana, a researcher at Amazonas at the Fiocruz Institute.
“And from an epidemiological point of view, the variant can destabilize regions where there is little control of virus circulation and with little infrastructure, causing the collapse of hospitals,” as happened in Manaus, where dozens of patients died from lack of oxygen.
“If the Brazilian authorities had been responsible, they would have isolated Manaus, as China did with Wuhan. But instead, they sent patients to other regions of the country, with companions, some of them infected with P1.” laments Orellana.
The Brazilian government even “should have closed borders to prevent this variant from reaching other countries, some poorer, such as Peru,” he added.
– Is it more lethal? –
So far, no study has concluded that P1 is more lethal.
In preliminary research, Orellana found that P1 did not increase the mortality rate in Manaus hospitals, compared to the first wave of the pandemic, in April 2020.
This analysis coincides with two studies published on Tuesday according to which the British variant does not derive in more severe cases from covid-19.
The escalation of deaths by covid-19 in Brazil in recent weeks is due to the collapse of hospitals “because this variant is more contagious, but also by the widespread relaxation” of the population in the face of prevention measures, ” tired of quarantine measures, ”Orellana adds.
Preliminary studies showed that the Chinese vaccine CoronaVac, the most used in Brazil, is effective against P1, as well as that of Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
– How much did it spread in Brazil? –
The P1 variant spread throughout almost all of Brazil, although data are lacking to measure the percentage responsible for infections in each region.
“Brazil’s genomic surveillance is one of the worst in the world,” in terms of sequencing the new strains, “P1 was not discovered nearly 60 days later, in Japan,” Orellana explains.
The uncontrolled circulation of viruses has led to new mutations, with variants of the same strain, such as P2, which circulates in Rio de Janeiro, or P4, recently detected in Belo Horizonte, in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais.
“Brazil became an open-air variant laboratory,” Orellana said.
To prevent the circulation of these variants, “the ideal would be to have sufficient doses for mass vaccination and a lockdown at the same time, as did England or Israel,” adds microbiologist Pasternak.
“But in Brazil we have neither one thing nor the other: confinement, mainly due to lack of political will,” adding that “we do not have enough doses for vaccination,” explains the specialist, emphasizing the ” lack of national coordination “of the fight against the pandemic by Jair Bolsonaro’s government.