Date Published: 03/03/2021
ARCHIVED - Restrictions imposed on 10 further countries to prevent the spread of Covid variants in Spain
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
There are multiple cases of imported variants around the country
The Spanish Ministry of Health updated the restrictions imposed on travellers arriving in this country from abroad on Tuesday, obliging visitors from another ten countries to self-quarantine on arrival in order to minimize the risk of coronavirus contagion involving the Brazilian and South African variants.
The countries added to the list are Peru, Colombia, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Comoros.
At the moment the total of known infections involving the Brazilian mutation of the virus in Spain is 17. At the same time, the number of cases in which the South African variant has been detected has risen to 54 across the country, while the “British” or “Kent” variant continues to spread: the latest reports from the different regions of Spain suggest that the British mutation accounts for as many as 64 per cent of cases in some areas, but as few as 4 per cent in others.
The Coordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies stresses that prevention measures such as facemasks, social distancing, hand-washing and ventilating premises are equally effective against the strains so far identified, but research is still on-going into a total of seven strains of coronavirus which represent a current or future threat in terms of contagiousness or virulence.
These are the mutations known as B.1.1.7 (the British variant), B.1.351 (the South African variant) and P.1 (the Brazilian variant), all three of which are relatively well-known, as well as others such as P.2 (first identified in Río de Janeiro), which has been found in 14 cases in Spain and which may be resistant to the response of the human body’s immune system.
There has also been one case confirmed in Spain of the B.1.525 (or “Nigerian”) variant, but none so far of the strains named B.1.429 (or “Californian”), which is known to be highly contagious, or VOC 202102/02, described as being similar to B.1.1.7.
Of the 17 cases of the P.1 Brazilian strain in Spain, two have been isolated and the others are grouped in three outbreaks, one of them consisting of 11 cases. In this outbreak no direct link with Brazil has been identified and one of the patients is the “probable re-infection”.
The 14 cases in which the P.2 Río de Janeiro strain has been identified include 9 in a hospital outbreak and a further three belonging to the same family group.
New mutated variants of Covid are frequent, experts state, and the main concern is whether the mutations affect the gene which codifies Protein S, as this is the “spike” targeted by vaccines. It is for this reason that the Brazilian variant is especially worrying as it presents no fewer than 12 mutations in the spike protein.