Date Published: 08/07/2021
ARCHIVED - Colombian variant of Covid spreads in Murcia
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The presence of the Delta variant is yet to be confirmed in the Costa Cálida but B.1.621 is the second most common strain
While Spain suffers its fifth wave of coronavirus contagion and the Delta variant of the virus continues to spread, there is increasing concern over the arrival of new mutations which could lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of vaccines and even greater transmissibility.
In some parts of Spain including the northern coastal region of Cantabria there is considerable alarm at the arrival of the C.37 “Lambda” variant, but at the same time in the Region of Murcia the sudden emergence of the B.1.621 strain, sometimes referred to as the “Colombian” variant, is becoming a worry. Already this is the second most common variant of Covid in Murcia behind the Alpha or British variant, and on occasions has been found to be present in almost 40 per cent of the cases in which genome sequencing has been performed at the Microbiology department of the La Arrixaca hospital in El Palmar.
Thus far no decrease in the efficiency of vaccines has been confirmed, but B.1.621 is known to be highly contagious and was first detected in Murcia in March. Since then another 144 cases have been confirmed (only a few cases are subjected to sequencing analysis), 97 of them related to 45 different local outbreaks.
Murcia has a strong south-American connection, with a substantial population of south-American nationals, principally working in the agricultural sector and the so-called "Bolivian variant" was responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in Murcia in July last year at the start of the second wave, all fuelled by the arrival of just one person who was carrying the strain from south-America after visiting family for a holiday.
The virus spread rapidly amongst the south-American community as this one person infected other family members, one of whom worked in various night-club venues in Murcia city, Totana and Lorca as a DJ, mainly frequented by young Latinos, who then spread the virus into their workplaces, again, mainly linked to food production, sparking off a huge chain of contagions which set-off the widespread second wave in Murcia.
The region has never fully recovered from the knock-on effects of just that one contagion.
Between them, the Colombian and Alpha variants account for the vast majority of Covid cases in Murcia, with only occasional cases of the Beta and Gamma variants, while for the time being at least there has been only one confirmed case involving the Delta variant. This involved a visitor from Madrid who was diagnosed on 10th June and returned home without being related to any other cases, but the experts expect Delta to become predominant throughout Spain in the near future.
All of this draws attention to the fact that even though Spain is pushing forward with its vaccination programme, case numbers of coivd are once again increasing sharply and last night Spain once again entered the "extreme risk zone", with its accumulated incidence rate passing 250 cases per 100,000.
The number of people in Spain who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus has reached 19,982,080, equivalent to 42.1 per cent of the population.
26,996,373 people have received at least one vaccine dose, equivalent to 56.9 per cent of the population, but these figures still leave millions of Spaniards unvaccinated or with only partial protection.
The most at-risk age group is considered to be the 60-69-year-old group who have only received one AstraZeneca vaccine and therefore only have around 30 per cent immunity against the virus: this week the government took the decision to pull forward the second vaccine in order to minimise the risk to this group.