There is now growing concern about the spread of the Brazilian variant in this country after five additional cases were reported yesterday, bringing the number of people with the highly transmissible variant of COVID-19 to nine in a week. Health officials now fear that the variant could be circulating in the population.
In a statement Monday, the Ministry of Health confirmed that the Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern (P.1) was detected in five additional unlinked people within the country’s borders.
SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.
The first P.1 infection in a local sample was confirmed on Monday, April 19 by the University of the West Indies which screens for the variant. It was found in a migrant in Mayaro.
Last Friday (April 23) the Ministry of Health revealed that three additional samples tested positive for the variant. The samples were taken from the Caroni, Victoria and St George West counties. One was a non-national, one a national and the other a minor.
Yesterday’s variants of concern were detected in three people from St George Central and two people in St George West.
These five were all nationals.
The Ministry of Health’s release yesterday noted that none of the now nine people infected with the variant have any epidemiological link to each other and cited their detection in people from varying areas across the country.
“All contact tracing and isolation procedures are in progress and are being managed by the relevant County Medical Officer of Health with the aim of reducing the spread of this Variant of Concern,” the Ministry’s release said.
The growing number of people testing positive for the Brazilian variant comes as the country records triple-digit figures of COVID-19 cases. Yesterday 120 positive cases were recorded.
The death count now stands at 159.
Hours earlier the Ministry’s Epidemiology Division’s Technical Director, Dr Avery Hinds, acknowledged the probability that there were other people infected with the variant outside of those already identified.
“While we cannot yet say that this is an established set of community spread, what we can say is that in the absence of geographic and epidemiologic links we continue to monitor. But it’s entirely possible that once the variant is introduced into the population then it does what variants do which is to establish itself as one of the circulating strains,” he said.
Further increasing this likelihood of it being in circulation undetected, is the university’s limited screening capacity which currently only allows for the random testing of samples- not all collected. However, Dr Hinds noted there are other effective ways to work around the limited capacity.
“All positives cannot yet be tested for variants of concern but the appropriate follow up for those who’ve already been confirmed in terms of contact tracing and subsequent testing will shed some light on additional spread in addition to the current random sequencing that is being done,” he said.
Dr Hinds indicated that there are ongoing discussions centred around increasing the university’s capacity to screen for the variant.
But Dr Clive Landis said while the spread of the Brazilian variant is concerning, it is doubly so for the Indian “double mutant” variant.
“It’s a case on convergent evolution,” he said.
“Of course with the connections, Trinidad has to India it certainly would be in my view a bigger concern.”
Speaking on CNC3’s the Morning Brew yesterday, head of the UWI COVID-19 Task Force Dr Clive Landis acknowledged there was still much that is unknown about the variant (Indian) such as the efficacy of vaccines against it.
“There is concern because it’s clear that it’s more contagious but we don’t really know yet if people could be reinfected or whether the vaccine works as well. We just don’t know.”
But he added the already established health measures would be able to protect citizens from any variant.
“Those measures do work, it simply reinforces the need to go through with them,” he said.
However, he noted the measures are only temporary and the real goal to protect against the disease is vaccination.