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Friday, February 12, 2021
Three times more contagious?
New Corona variant discovered in Brazil
According to the Brazilian government, a new crown mutation is spreading in the north of the country. Consequently, the Amazon variant could be three times more contagious than the original version. Based on testing, existing vaccines should be effective against the mutant.
A new variant of the coronavirus has been discovered in the Brazilian Amazon. This mutation is probably three times more contagious than the original virus, Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said on Thursday (local time). Despite the high risk of contagion by the new mutation, the minister said: “Thank God the analysis has shown that vaccines are also effective against this variant.” However, the Ministry of Health has not yet provided any data from this analysis.
According to Pazuello, infections in the jungle city of Manaus have risen unexpectedly in recent months, but are being controlled. In a hearing in the Senate, the minister said that Brazil will vaccinate half of the eligible population by June and the rest by the end of the year. However, the country has currently only secured vaccination doses to supply half of its population.
Brazil started vaccinating about three weeks ago with vaccines from Sinovac Biotech from China and AstraZeneca from the UK. The Butantano Institute in Sao Paulo said in a statement that it has already begun studies on the new Manaus variant, but that results cannot be expected for two weeks. The Fiocruz biomedical center in Rio de Janeiro, which partnered with AstraZeneca, also announced that it had also tested the effectiveness against the Amazon variant and had sent samples to Oxford.
