Photo: Nanfang Daily

According to the weekly report of the China CDC Weekly, The Brazil variant has been found in Guangdong for the first time from two imported cases abroad.

On April 15, a 62-year-old male and a 58-year-old female traveled from Canada via airplane and were transferred to a central isolation hotel after being tested by the laboratory of Guangzhou Customs using nose swab tests for COVID-19. The results for both patients returned COVID-19 positive and the couple were transported to the Guangzhou Eighth People’s Hospital for isolated treatment by ambulance on April 16, 2021. Both of their 28 close contacts underwent centralized isolation and medical observation.

On April 21, Guangdong Provincial CDC received the samples and began virus isolation and gene sequencing analysis. On April 30, 2021, the sequencing analysis concluded that the 2 virus genomes belonged to lineage P.1, 20J/501Y.V3, which was first found in four Brazilians after a routine check at Japan’s Haneda airport in late December 2020. The variant was, at that time, widely spread to Manaus in the northern State of Amazona in Brazil. The Brazil variant has been reported in 40 different countries as of April 30.

This is the fourth recent detection of a major international variant following the detection of the United Kingdom 501Y.V1 variant, the South African 501Y.V2 variant, and the Nigerian B.1.525 variant in Guangdong.

Source: China CDC Weekly

Author: Alice

Editor: Steven, Jerry