translated from Spanish: Brazil detects the first cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus

Brazil has detected the first cases of variant B.1.617.2, known as the Indian variant of Covid-19, which have arrived across a ship from South Africa to Maranhao state in the north of the country. The Secretary of Health of Maranhao and President of the National Council of Secretaries of Health of Brazil (CONASS), Carlos Lula, has confirmed the detection of up to six positives with this variant among the 24 crew members of the ship Zhi Shandong.While the ship has been preemptively isolated, at least one of the crew members are admitted to a hospital in Sao Luis, although their health is stable, while 14 other crew members who have also tested positive for coronavirus — not all of the Indian variant–, are on the ship.” All measures are being taken, the crew is isolated and the ship cannot dock,” said Lula, who has also indicated that a hundred people have had contact with the infected crew, so they will be monitored and isolated, UOL collects. These cases have been followed since last Saturday an Indian source patient admitted to a hospital in Sao Luis, the crew member of the ship still hospitalized. Meanwhile, the country has added 2,403 more deaths from the pandemic, which has left 82,039 new cases in the last day, according to the balance sheet of the Ministry of Health published on Thursday. Brazil thus accumulates 15,894,094 confirmed positives and 444,094 deces since the health crisis erupted. EARLY DELIVERY OF COVAXThe Brazilian Ministry of Health has announced the early arrival by June of four million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX mechanism. The delivery of these doses, which will now be sent to Brazilian territory next month, was scheduled for the third quarter of the year, reports the Brazilian medium UOL. This batch will join the one received in early May, also composed of four million units of the same biological, while both are part of the agreement with the mechanism of 42 million vaccines for this year. These doses will help the country continue with immunization, a process in which vaccine shortage delays have been delayed due, among other issues, to the lack of inputs from China for the production on Brazilian territory of biologicals such as CoronaVac.So far, Brazil has applied 61.3 million doses, with 41 million people receiving at least the first dose and 20.2 million who have been inoculated with the two doses — that is, with the complete scheme–, according to the Brazilian media consortium that analyse the pandemic on a daily basis. Under the National Vaccination Plan, people with chronic neurological diseases have been included as a priority group on Thursday, reports Agencia Brasil.

Original source in Spanish