Covid-19: São Paulo confirms city’s first case of Delta variant

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The first case of the Delta variant of the new coronavirus, originally detected in India, has been confirmed in the city of São Paulo. According to the city government, a 45-year-old man tested positive for the variant and is being monitored.

The city said three other people in the family (wife, stepson, and son) are being followed up by the local Basic Health Unit (BHU).

“Since April, in partnership with the state government, the capital has been sending part of the samples from positive RT-PCR exams to the Butantan Institute for genomic analysis in an attempt to identify the strains currently circulating in the city of São Paulo. Through this initiative, it was possible to identify the first positive case in the city,” City Hall stated.

According to the municipality, the monitoring of the variants in the capital is performed using sample calculation, per epidemiological week, “with about 250 weekly samples that are sent for analysis to the laboratory of the Butantan Institute, where the genetic sequencing is performed.”

BRAZIL HAS TWO CONFIRMED DELTA VARIANT DEATHS

In Brazil, the Ministry of Health informed that 11 cases of the Delta variant had been registered by the end of last week. Six of them are from a ship off the coast of the state of Maranhão; there is one case in Campos dos Goytacazes (RJ), one in Juiz de Fora (MG), two in Apucarana (PR) and one in Goiânia (GO).

Two people died due to the infection caused by the new strain: a crew member of the ship docked in Maranhão, on June 24th, and a 42-year-old pregnant woman, on April 18th, in Paraná.

Concern over the rapid spread of the Delta variant is forcing a growing number of countries to reimpose stricter restrictive measures in an attempt to prevent a new wave of Covid-19 from disrupting global efforts to contain the pandemic and return to normalcy. According to the World Health Organization, the strain is circulating through 92 countries.