RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Amazonas variant, a new mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus originating in Manaus (Brazil) and different from those in the United Kingdom and South Africa, is already in Peru, said on Tuesday, January 19th, Carlos Calampa, Health Director of Loreto, the largest region of the Peruvian Amazon, bordering Brazil.
“Clinically we have no doubts,” said Calampa in statements to Channel N after confirming with several institutions a rapid surge in Covid-19 cases in Loreto with patients whose clinical symptoms were very similar to those reported in Manaus.
However, there is still no scientific confirmation, given that the National Institute of Health (INS) has yet to sequence the virus genome from ten samples sent from Loreto.
“The situation is very concerning because cases have been steadily rising,” said Calampa, whose region was the first in Peru to be overwhelmed by the first wave of the pandemic and became one of the global epicenters of the disease in the first months of 2020.
Uncontrolled border
The head of the Regional Health Directorate (DIRESA) of Loreto warned that he was notified by Manaus that there are many people traveling from that city to Loreto in search of assistance.
Accordingly, Calampa urged the government to close Peru’s river border with Brazil, or at least to implement some kind of control by the armed forces, because since the start of the pandemic, boat traffic has continued even during confinement.
Currently, Loreto has 101 hospitalized patients, 16 of whom in intensive care units (ICU) requiring mechanical ventilation. Since the start of the pandemic, Loreto’s DIREA has reported a total of 64,881 confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19, and 2,471 deaths.
Until a few weeks ago, the pandemic situation in Loreto seemed to be controlled in part by the high incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in the first wave, as a seroprevalence study estimated that 70% of the population of Iquitos, the region’s capital with a population of half a million, had been infected.
At the national level, the government reports over one million confirmed symptomatic cases, of which nearly 39,000 have died, but the regional governments, which also count symptomatic and suspected cases, raise the figure to over two million infections.
British variant already present
The UK variant, which is up to 70% more contagious, is also now circulating in Peru. The first case was confirmed on January 8th in a woman who had not traveled abroad herself nor her close contacts, so the time of its arrival in the country could not be determined.
The appearance of the Amazonas variant was confirmed last Tuesday, January 12th, by the Brazilian Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), the largest medical research center in Latin America, whose deputy director Felipe Naveca said it presents a series of unprecedented mutations.
The Amazonas variant contains twelve mutations, among which the same one found in variants already identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa, which implies a greater potential for virus transmission.
However, the Amazonas variant is completely independent from those of the United Kingdom and South Africa, which is why experts believe that this new strain may have evolved from one that has been circulating in the Amazon since April last year.
Deaths from Covid-19 have surged in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, where almost 6,000 people have died from the virus, and the hospital system in Manaus, which is home to two million of the region’s three million inhabitants, has once again collapsed due to lack of beds – and now also oxygen – after the dramatic scenario experienced ten months ago.