São Paulo confirms third case of patient with omicron variant

The São Paulo Health Department confirmed this Wednesday (1) the third case of the omicron variant in the state. This is a 28-year-old man who arrived from Ethiopia over the weekend and tested positive for Covid-19. He was already isolated in Guarulhos, in Greater São Paulo, and under surveillance by the municipality.

According to the folder, he continues without showing symptoms of the disease and had already been vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The sequencing was analyzed by the Instituto Adolfo Lutz.

The first two cases of the new variant in the country, analyzed by Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, are two missionaries, a 41-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman. The couple, asymptomatic and equally immunized, are isolated in the home of relatives in the capital. São Paulo.

The missionaries had positive results in PCR tests collected in the Einstein laboratory installed at Guarulhos International Airport before traveling to South Africa.

On Tuesday (30), Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) stated that the omicron variant was identified in the country. In the evening, the Adolfo Lutz Institute confirmed both cases.

The new, potentially more transmissible strain was sequenced across South Africa last week and has already spread across five continents.

Nigerian health authorities said on Wednesday that the first cases of the omicron variant were confirmed in the country. One of the samples with the strain, however, is from October, which suggests that the variant appeared before being sequenced by South Africa.

In the assessment of the WHO (World Health Organization), the variant represents a high risk and there are many unknowns about it.

​ “Given the mutations that could confer the ability to evade an immune response, and give it an advantage in terms of transmissibility, the probability that the omicron will propagate around the world is high,” the entity said.

For the Health Department of São Paulo, measures already known by the population to combat the pandemic, such as the use of masks, hand hygiene and vaccination against Covid-19, should be followed.