Argentina has detected two new coronavirus variants brought into the country by passengers arriving from Brazil, announced Health Minister Ginés González García has revealed.
"The Amazonas P1 variant was recently detected in two [patient] samples, and the Rio de Janeiro P2 variant in another two travellers. All of them [came] from Brazil,” said the official in a post on Twitter.
Argentina has recorded nearly two million cases of Covid-19, with more than 49,000 deaths in a country of 45 million inhabitants.
The laboratories of the ANLIS-Malbrán Institute, a specialist state epidemiology centre, were responsible for the detection of the virus variants.
“There aren’t many cases and they can be isolated,” said Buenos Aires Province Health Minister Daniel Gollán, speaking ro radio Futurock.
Argentina is already rolling out a vaccination campaign, although there have been delays from the laboratories recruited to produce the vaccines.
The first vaccine to be administered was the Sputnik V from the Russian institute Gamaleya.
“These findings highlight the importance of active genomic and epidemiological surveillance in order to monitor the introduction of these variants into our country,” González García said.
Other non-local variants of the coronavirus that have been discovered include those found in the United Kingdom. At present, there are three strains circulating the world.
—TIMES/AFP
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