The Mutation Threat: Brazil has become a global threat

DrA photo of a dying patient on the cold tiles of the UPA Teresina emergency relief station ferrying the Brazilians. Next to the helpless man, 86, sits desperate, exhausted nurse Paulina Silvera. In front of her is a container with the last medicine and aid she still has available. The picture is in Various newspapers Printed, symbolizing the desperate situation he was in The health system of a huge country in South America Located.

Almost everywhere, hospitals and primary admission departments have reported shortages of intensive care beds, medicines and oxygen that are about to run out. All beds were also occupied by UPA Teresina in the interior of the most populous state of Piauí in the northeast. Nurse Silvera reports in the Brazilian media about her daily remarks about the mutation: “This virus is much stronger than the one we had a year ago.” Teresina is nearly overwhelmed by the strength of the third wave, according to Silvera. “We are now in a painful situation, with a lot of fear.”

Brazil has it yet The deadliest week Since the beginning of the epidemic. The Brazilian Media Press Association, which self-sets the daily figures because it has not trusted the Health Ministry for months, counted more than 16,000 deaths in one week. The Mismanagement of the Brazilian government It has already enabled the dangerous mutant P1 to spread – to Europe.

A race against time

And P1 could only have been the beginning: wherever many people became infected, new mutations could appear. Brazilian virologist Attila Iamarino confirmed this in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Where there have already been many infections, there is a risk that mutations will develop.”

Therefore, the international community of countries must now help Brazil get the infection under control. Because the concern is not only that a new mutation could spread around the world from Brazil, but also that in the worst case, vaccines against it may not work.

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry has already asked other countries for help, medicine and vaccination doses. It is a race against time. Similar to the European Union, Brazil has also failed to order vaccines on time and is now trying to make up for the shortfall through frantic purchases. It now depends on the pace at which the vaccine is produced and delivered, whether Brazil can be vaccinated faster than new mutations emerge. So the future of the epidemic will be decided in Brazil.

“We have become a global threat,” said Brazilian infection scientist Dennis Jarrett, vice president of the Sabine Vaccine Institute (Washington). BBC this week. The government of right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro bears responsibility for this. Brazil is an example of everything that can go wrong in a pandemic. The government undermined measures such as social distancing or wearing masks, and she also slept too long while getting vaccinations.

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Even more worrisome than the death toll is the increase in occupancy rates in intensive care units and the rise in the number of new infections. With the exception of Amazonas, where the first vaccinations (14.1 percent) are the most advanced, the daily “Folha” reported a strong or steady increase in the number of infections from all other states.

With an average of seven days, it reached 75,417 injuries, and more than 500,000 new infections were added in the last week alone. And this is precisely the problem, because through this massive mass of new infections, other mutations could develop that could threaten the rest of the world. The full strength of these large numbers of infections will only unfold in the next few days, when Brazilian scientists predict up to 4,000 deaths per day.

P1 mutation prevalence

The P1 mutation variant showed just how fast the mutation could spread from Brazil. It was already discovered in 25 countries at the beginning of March – including Great Britain. Relatively sparsely populated Uruguay with a population of 3.5 million people also confirmed the existence of the Brazilian variant in seven provinces on Monday. President Louis Lacal Poe immediately called the cabinet to discuss appropriate measures.

Evidence for the most contagious variable explains the significant increase in the incidence rate in Uruguay in the past few days. So far, the country has been under control of the epidemic better than all South American countries due to the wise and prudent policy of the conservative head of state. Venezuela also recently reported a significant increase in new infections, which President Nicolas Maduro has blamed on the Brazilian substitute. The country imposed a strict lockdown for two weeks.

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The World Health Organization has urged Brazil to take a more coordinated approach to the pandemic. The Director of the World Health Organization, Michael Ryan, expressed concern about “severe pressure” on the Brazilian health system.

Bolsonaro does not want to change his coronavirus policy despite domestic political pressure and a fiery message from 1,500 entrepreneurs demanding a change in the course of the pandemic. Bolsonaro said the lockdown will only make the poor poorer.

At the same time, the World Health Organization has urged rich countries to ensure that poor countries also get much-needed vaccines so that mutations do not spread there. This is precisely the argument of the Brazilian government, which rejects criticism of Brazil as “a danger to the world” as discriminatory and “terribly unjust.”

Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo said the promised solidarity of vaccination for rich countries did not yet exist. It has already become clear that the anger of the Brazilians will not only be directed against Bolsonaro, but also against industrialized countries that stockpile vaccines such as the USA and Great Britain.