Home-grown Covid-19 variant found to be present in Uruguay until last April

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguayan scientists have found P.6, the Covid-19 variant specific to the South American country. They claim it could have contributed to the first wave of cases registered at the end of 2020 but which was then overtaken by the Brazilian P.1 and, since the end of April, has disappeared.

The Pasteur Institute of Montevideo issued a statement on Monday (2) in which it details that the Uruguayan SARS-CoV-2 variant was detected thanks to a study carried out by researchers of the Inter-institutional Working Group (GTI) in genomic surveillance of the virus and adds that this variant appeared for the first time in November 2020 and was the predominant one until March.

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“P.6 – according to the denomination granted by an international scientific committee – owes its name to the fact that it derives from variant B.1.1.28, originated and widely distributed in Brazil during 2020,” the text explains.

According to the Institute, the international scientific committee establishes that to be considered a variant, the finding “must-have mutations that distinguish it from existing variants” and that the geographic spread must differ from the original.

“The Uruguayan variant includes two relevant mutations located in the Spike protein, which could be associated with increased transmissibility. One of the mutations has also been detected in other variants around the world, increasing its frequency towards the end of 2020, which would support the idea that it may give it greater transmissibility,” the statement says.

After its appearance in November, the Uruguayan variant became predominant between January and February and began to decrease in March, when P1 arrived. So far, the last sample detected with the Uruguayan variant dates back to April 26.

“Scientists estimate that the Uruguayan variant would have played an important role in the first wave of Covid-19 in the country, as they observed a coincidence between the emergence and dissemination of this local variant with the increase of Covid-19 cases registered from November/December,” the statement concludes.

Since December 2020, Uruguay experienced strong growth of Covid-19 cases, and this worsened since March with the arrival of the Brazilian P1. From then on, positives and deaths increased exponentially, and it was not until June that the numbers improved, helped by vaccination in a high percentage of the population.

The country has had 381,569 cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of the health emergency, which was declared in Uruguay on March 13, 2020, of which 1,967 people are currently suffering from the disease, 53 of them in intensive treatment centers (CTI) and 5,966 have died.