MINNEAPOLIS – A new Brazilian variant of the coronavirus made its first known appearance in the United States in a person who recently returned to Minnesota after traveling to Brazil, state health officials announced on Monday.
The Brasil P.1 variant was found in a specimen of a patient who lives in Minneapolis-St. Paul area who became ill the first week of January, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement. Epidemiologists are interviewing the person for more details about their illness, travel and contacts.
There was no immediate indication that the variant was spreading in Minnesota.
Viruses are constantly changing and new versions – called variants – frequently appear. Health officials are also concerned about variants reported for the first time in the UK and South Africa. Researchers believe they can spread more easily than the virus that has already sickened millions in the United States and caused nearly 420,000 deaths.
The Brazilian variant was first identified in four travelers tested at an airport outside Tokyo, Japan. It contains a set of mutations that could affect its ability to be recognized by antibodies, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Diseases.
The Minnesota Department of Health has a program that conducts regular surveillance for variants, testing 50 random samples from the University of Minnesota laboratories weekly. State Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said the new finding underscores the importance of testing, as well as ongoing efforts to limit the spread of the disease.
“We know that even as we work hard to defeat covid-19, the virus continues to evolve like all viruses,” said Malcolm in a statement. “This is another reason why we want to limit the transmission of covid-19 – the less people get covid-19, the fewer opportunities the virus has to evolve. The good news is that we can slow the spread of this variant and all of the covid-19 variants using the tried and tested prevention methods of wearing masks, maintaining social distance, staying at home when sick and taking the test when appropriate. ”
Some researchers have raised the concern that people who have already been infected with covid-19 may be reinfected with the Brazilian variant.
If confirmed, “it would be disturbing,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
The CDC reported at least 195 cases of the United Kingdom variant in the United States. These reports came from at least 22 states, including eight in Minnesota. The South African variant was not discovered in the United States. Last week, the World Health Organization called for a greater effort to detect new variants.
President Joe Biden reinstated the covid-19 travel restrictions on Monday for most non-American travelers from Brazil, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Experts predicted it was only a matter of time before the Brazilian and South African countries appeared in the United States.
It makes sense that it was first detected in Minnesota, which has laboratory resources beyond those available in other states, said Schaffner. That means it may already be present elsewhere in the U.S., but it just hasn’t been identified yet, he said.
The CDC said the United Kingdom variant could become dominant in the United States in March. Although it does not cause more serious illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths just because it spreads much more easily, said the CDC, warning of “a new phase of exponential growth”.
Scientists last week reported preliminary, but worrying, signs that some recent mutations may modestly limit the effectiveness of the current two vaccines, although they emphasize that the vaccines still protect against the disease. And there are signs that some of the new mutations may hinder testing for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of certain treatments. Some tests suggest that South African and Brazilian variants may be less susceptible to antibiotic drugs or antibody-rich blood from covid-19 survivors, which help people fight the virus.
Health officials also fear that if the virus changes enough, people may receive covid-19 a second time. Re-infection is rare, but Brazil confirmed a case of someone with the new variant who fell ill with an earlier version several months earlier.
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