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The first case of Covid-19 associated with the South African genetic variant was identified this Friday in Portugal by the Ricardo Jorge National Institute of Health (INSA), the institution informed Lusa.
The case identified in Portugal, through genomic sequencing, has already been reported by INSA to the competent health authorities, which are “taking the necessary measures to quickly trace the contacts and interrupt the potential chain of transmission,” according to the agency.
According to South African scientists, the data collected so far has not shown that the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 detected in South Africa, called 501Y.V2, accompanies a higher rate of morbidity, although increasing pressure from the health system may be behind more deaths.
INSA has been developing since April 2020, in conjunction with the Gulbenkian Institute of Sciences and with the collaboration of more than 65 laboratories, hospitals and institutions throughout the country, a study that aims to determine the mutational profiles of SARS-CoV-2 for the identification and monitoring of the transmission chains of the new coronavirus, in addition to the identification of new virus introductions in Portugal.
Portugal registered this Friday the highest number of deaths (234) from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and 13,987 new cases of contagion, according to the daily balance of the DGS.
In Portugal, 9,920 people have already died of the 609,136 confirmed cases of infection.
Covid-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus (type of virus) detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, which has spread rapidly around the world.
The number of deaths in Portugal during 2020 was 10.6% higher than the average of the previous five years, the National Institute of Statistics reported this Friday, which registered 123,409 deaths, 12,220 more than between 2015 and 2019.
As of December 31, there were 6,906 deaths attributed to Covid-19, that is, 56% of the excess mortality in 2020 in relation to the 2015-2019 average.
[notícia atualizada às 21h01 com mais informações]
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