Fears grow over mutating Brazil Covid-19 variant

Research conducted by the public health institute Fiocruz into the variants circulating in Brazil found mutations in the spike region of the virus that is used to enter and infect cells.

Brazil’s P1 coronavirus variant, behind a deadly Covid-19 surge in the Latin American country that has raised international alarm, is mutating in ways that could make it better able to evade antibodies, according to scientists studying the virus.

In this aerial photo boats are seen parked on the banks of the Buriganga River during a lockdown imposed to combat the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, in Dhaka on April 15, 2021. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP) (AFP)

Research conducted by the public health institute Fiocruz into the variants circulating in Brazil found mutations in the spike region of the virus that is used to enter and infect cells.

Those changes, the scientists said, could make the virus more resistant to vaccines with grave implications for the severity of the outbreak in the country.

“We believe it’s another escape mechanism the virus is creating to evade the response of antibodies,” said Felipe Naveca, one of the authors of the study and part of Fiocruz in Manaus, where the P1 variant is believed to have originated. Naveca said the changes appeared to be similar to the mutations seen in the even more aggressive South African variant. “This is particularly worrying because the virus is continuing to accelerate in its evolution,” he added.

In a bizarre development, federal prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Roraima are investigating reports that illegally-mined gold is being exchanged for Covid-19 vaccines in the Yanomami indigenous reserve.

The number of people killed by Covid-19 climbed past 100,000 in France on Thursday, with the virus claiming a further 300 lives in the past 24 hours, the country’s health authority said. A day earlier, the death toll had stood at 99,805.

The country of 67 million is the eighth in the world to reach the symbolic mark, and the third in Europe after the UK and Italy.

Germany’s health care system is getting stretched to the brink, with many hospitals overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients and rising case numbers pointing to tougher days ahead. The occupancy rate in ICUs rose to 88% on Wednesday. On Thursday, Germany reported 31,117 new cases.

More than 170 former world leaders and Nobel laureates have urged US President Joe Biden to make Covid-19 vaccines more readily available by waiving US intellectual property rules. They made the call in an open letter shared by Oxfam.