One of the most recent concerns regarding the coronavirus is the appearance of the variants of covid-19 and its possible implantation, with the uncertainty that it may leave in the vaccination process. In Spain, where the British strain is already the dominant one, for example, cases of a new type have begun to be detected: the Manaus strain or better known as ‘Brazilian’.
According to the latest , dated March 18, there have currently been 20 cases of the Brazilian strain, the P.1 variant of the virus. Of these 20 cases, two have been sporadic and the other 18 are associated with four different outbreaks.
However, this figure is likely to increase. Asturias has announced this week its first confirmed case and its suspicions about two others. Cantabria, previously, had also announced another case and up to 90 in follow-up just a few days ago.
The Ministry of Health explains that, for the moment, hardly any cases have been registered outside of Brazil and that both its transmissibility and its virulence are being studied, although it recognizes the possibility that there may be an “escape to the immune response”, which would result in a “reduction of neutralizing antibody titers in vaccinated sera”.
At the moment, the incidence of this strain is anecdotal and the effect it could have on the vaccinated is unknown, although the developers of the drugs have been reassuring the population in this regard for now.
All suspicions, however, point to the fact that this strain could lead to a greater number of reinfections. Ismael Huerta, Epidemiological Surveillance Service of Asturias, has assured that “there is a higher frequency of reinfections”, since this strain “has a certain capacity to escape the immune response and hence there is some reinfection”.
A joint study ensures that the risk of reinfection increases between 25 and 60% with this variant, which would have arrived in Manaus last November. It also qualified it as more contagious, since it established between 1.4 and 2.2 times more powerful that contagion capacity.
Before the appearance of these strains or variants, the appeal is tranquility. Follow-up with the vaccination plan (more than 6.6 million doses administered in Spain and 2.2 million people with the complete schedule) is, together with respect for security measures, the best way to act.
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