Virology Professor at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr Christopher Oura, is backing calls by the Ministry of Health for heightened vigilance among the public, as he says the detection of three additional people infected with the more transmissible Brazilian COVID variant (P.1) means it’s spreading locally.
“It does seem that this P.1 variant has spread within the community within Trinidad, which I suppose is not that surprising with this virus being detected in Caroni, Victoria and St George West counties,” he said.
“There being no links to these particular cases obviously means that we have the virus spreading within the population.”
According to a Ministry of Health release yesterday, confirmation of the variant’s detection came from UWI on Thursday night.
The university does the requisite genomic testing in positive samples to monitor for variants.
The release said that of the three people the variant was found in, one was not a national of T&T while the other was a local minor. Just days ago, the country detected its first case of the variant in a local positive case in Mayaro that Guardian Media later learnt was a non-national who recently entered the country illegally.
On Wednesday, the ministry’s Epidemiology Division technical director, Dr Avery Hinds, assured that at the time there was no indication that the P.1 variant had seeded itself among the population from that case. He noted that contact tracing exercises were still ongoing.
The ministry’s release yesterday pointed out that these new cases are not connected to this person and were discovered in both ends of the country.
“It is important to note that the cases have not been geographically or epidemiologically linked to the previously identified P1 variant case, or to each other. The variants were detected in cases from the Caroni, Victoria and St George West counties.”
Oura said the Ministry of Health officials now have their work cut out for them to contain the variant.
“(It’s) a harder job for the ministry and the tracking and tracing teams to try to make sure that they can detect all the people who have been infected with this virus and then try to stop them spreading it,” he said.
One of the challenges he anticipates they will face is if the virus has already spread much further than these people.
“The further you go down the chain of transmission, or the further you get the virus transmitted to people, the more difficult it is to get under control. Of course, the key thing now...is to try to identify exactly the extent of spread of the virus within the population.”
While he noted this was “not a good state of affairs,” he said there is still a chance of stopping it.
The Ministry of Health yesterday assured that all contact tracing and isolation procedures are in progress and is being managed by the relevant County Medical Officers of Health to “contain these Variants of Concern.”
The Brazilian Variant of Concern has been detected in some 40 countries around the world. It was first detected in samples from Manaus in the Amazonas state in northern Brazil in mid-December. Simulations of P.1’s properties suggest that the variant is 1.7 to 2.4 times more transmissible but it is still unclear at this point if it’s any deadlier.
Also concerning about the variant is its potential of up to 60 per cent, to reinfect someone who was previously infected with another strain of the virus.
Preliminary data indicate that the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca is effective against the Brazilian variant without modification to the vaccine. (Rishard Khan)