A 56-year-old foreigner is the first case detected in Mexico of the new variant of covid-19, health authorities reported. The contagion was identified at the end of December in Matamoros, in the northern state of Tamaulipas, but the State Secretary made it known only on Sunday afternoon. When the man entered the country, he did not present symptoms, although his situation worsened and he had to be admitted to a private hospital, where he remains intubated. José Luis Alomía, general director of Epidemiology, has explained that there is insufficient scientific evidence to affirm that this strain is more lethal than the other mutations of the virus.
The man, who works for an international company, landed in Mexico City on December 28 after taking a flight from Amsterdam (Netherlands). The next day he moved to Matamoros, where, by company protocol, a PCR test was applied in a private laboratory, which was positive. On December 31, a second test was administered, which confirmed the contagion and was sent to the Institute for Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference, which is responsible for monitoring the advance of the virus in Mexico. The Institute reviewed the sample on January 2, on alert for the travel history of the infected person. By day 4, his oxygenation dropped to 48% and he was admitted to the hospital, assisted with supplemental oxygen, last Friday.
During that time, health authorities analyzed the genetic sequence and found that it was the same strain that has been detected since last September in the United Kingdom, known as B117. Follow-up was also carried out to rule out infections among passengers, the crew and other people who were in contact with him. Of the people analyzed, 31 have not presented symptoms, two suffered conditions but their test came back negative and the tracking of 12 others continues.
The announcement of the arrival of the new variant came a day after the country broke a new record for daily cases, registering 16,105 infections on Saturday. Mexico this week exceeded 1.5 million infections and has already reached 133,706 deaths. Mexico City, the most populated area affected by the pandemic, is around 90% hospital occupancy, in the midst of a critical moment after the December celebrations.
Alomía has warned in the daily conference on the advance of the virus that the new strain detected can infect people who had already fallen ill before, but tried to send a reassuring message, remembering that no international body had recognized that this strain was more dangerous. The misnamed British strain is known by that name because it is the country that has allocated the most resources to research it. The United Kingdom has indicated that this variant is up to 70% more contagious than those that circulated in March, at the beginning of the epidemic in Europe and America, but evidence is still lacking to confirm this data because the bulk of the studies that have been done only he has analyzed British patients.
The Government of Boris Johnson attributes to this strain the exponential increase in cases in the country, which has had to tighten the confinement to avoid the rise in infections. The new variant has already been detected in more than a dozen European countries, according to the European Center for Disease Detection and Control. In Spain, for example, a study was made public on January 6 in which two people who had not traveled outside the country had contracted this mutation. The variant has also been found in South Africa, Australia, and the United States.
The United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) have called for calm. “Viruses mutate over time; that is natural and expected ”, said WHO Director Tedros Adhanom. The international body has not yet been able to discern whether this mutation is more contagious due to its genetic characteristics or due to people’s own behavior. However, he has insisted that the best prevention is not to lower your guard. “The more we allow it to spread, the more opportunities it has [el virus] to mutate, ”Adhanom added.
International agencies and the British Government maintain permanent communication to know if the vaccines can be just as effective with the new mutations, although for now they have ruled out that new prototypes are needed. “SARS-CoV-2 is mutating much less than the influenza virus and no variant has impacted the susceptibility of the virus to drugs or to the vaccine,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the WHO.
Apart from the first case of the variant in Mexico, which has brought nervousness and media attention, the country is going through a critical moment, with six consecutive days registering more than 10,000 infections, a delicate horizon in the availability of beds and with relatives of patients who they have had difficulty getting oxygen. More than 80,000 Mexicans have already received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and the country hopes to withstand the onslaught of the first months of the year: with the pandemic in a dark hour and waiting for the largest shipments of immunizations against the covid-19.
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