Brazilian variant: concern mounts over new Covid mutants
Specialists are warning about these Covid-19 variants which are wreaking havoc, especially in Brazil. Even if the Brazilian strain is still very little present in France, they call for strengthening security measures and establishing a binding fortnight.
After the calm, the storm. Around the world, countries are once again in the throes of disease outbreaks of Covid-19 . A dormant time, the virus circulates at a speed never seen in India . And in South America, especially in Chile and Brazil , the death curve seems impossible to change. “There are 500 patients a day on waiting lists in Rio hospitals, 800 in Sao Paulo. Here, it’s chaos, ”laments Dr. Marie-Christine Duniau, medical consultant at the Consulate General of France in Rio. A health disaster that questions even in France and raises the question of vaccines and measures to protect against these terrible variants.
As the vaccination campaign accelerates, are the four authorized sera able to protect us against the English, South African and Brazilian mutants which appeared after their manufacture? “What we know is that Pfizer is against the British variant, but that it is losing effectiveness against South Africa. It would take six to fourteen times more antibodies to block it, ”analyzes Olivier Schwartz, director of the virus and immunity unit at the Institut Pasteur. However, a study carried out by the American laboratory affirms that it is 100%. “What you have to see is its effectiveness over time. Maybe at first the antibody level is enough, but it decreases over time. Moreover, Pfizer is working on a third dose, ”continues Olivier Schwartz. Regarding the AstraZeneca, it is much less protective against the South African. Consequently, in Moselle , where it is very present, the High Authority for Health recommends the use of messenger RNA vaccines (Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna). As for the Brazilian, he looks just as tough, if not more.
“It can go very quickly, including in Europe! “
But why worry when the vaccination works against the English variant, which has become the majority in France and the Brazilian is barely existing ? “Nothing says that it will not be the next strain to develop, warns epidemiologist Antoine Flahault . At first it may seem trivial, then it can rise very quickly. “
The proof in Latin America, confronted not with a mutant, but with mutants. That of Manaus, the “P1” is wreaking havoc in the Amazon. There is the “P2” and now the terrible “Belo Horizonte”, in the south-east of the country, which combines no less than 18 transfers. “All of Brazil is affected. Many young people aged 35-40 have more serious forms, surely due to P1, ”warns Dr. Marie-Christine Duniau, while President Jair Bolsonaro refuses confinement. “We see a lot more respiratory failures, embolisms, heart attacks when it was very rare at the start of the epidemic. “
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This powder keg worries Professor Rémi Salomon. “It is the least that we can say”, ironically the representative of the doctors of the Public Assistance – Hospitals of Paris, precisely in full update of the data on the variants. “The Brazilian, as we know, is now very well established in South America, in Chile, of course, but that’s it, we also see that he is coming back. There are nearly 800 cases in British Columbia ( Editor’s note: a province in western Canada ), and it arrives in the United States, in Massachusetts, in Florida… The lesson to be learned is that it can go very quickly, including in Europe! he insists. Admittedly, the number of entries into the territory has been drastically reduced with around 1,000 arrivals per week, but an outbreak can occur with a few dozen cases, remember the Grand-Est or Northern Italy there a year ago! “
In France, a “lack of rigor on isolation”
For Rémi Salomon, there is no doubt that this raises the question of strengthening checks on travelers from the affected areas. “A PCR test is not enough. We must add a binding quarantine, ”he said, taking the example of Portugal which imposes a 14-day one or the United Kingdom which provides for a 10-day one, with a fine of up to 10,000. pounds sterling (approximately € 11,500) in the event of non-compliance. Failure to do so can even be entered in the criminal record in Switzerland.
