[News] The viral load of the Brazilian variant of COVID-19 is up to ten times higher, studies indicate

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The strain would explain the strength and expansion of the second wave of infections in the country, according to researchers.

Brazil is one of the countries with the most cases in the world due to the pandemic: it accumulates 10'587,001 infections since the first case of the virus was registered on February 26 of last year, which have caused 255,720 deaths since the first victim, the March 12, 2020.

Preliminary studies by Brazilian and English researchers have found a Brazilian variant of COVID-19 baptized as P1, this could have a viral load up to ten times higher and is capable of evading the immune system of those people who had antibodies against the coronavirus.

Research published last Friday indicates that the new variant originating in the state of Amazonas is between 1.4 and 2.2 times more transmissible than those that precede it and is soon one of the factors behind the second wave of coronavirus in Brazil .

"It probably does all three things at the same time: it is more transmissible, it invades the immune system more and probably must be more pathogenic," Ester Sabino, professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), tells EFE. and coordinator of the USP group that participated in the research carried out by the Brazil-United Kingdom Center for the Discovery and Diagnosis of Abrovirus (CADDE).

They also concluded that the new strain is capable not only of bypassing the immune system, but also of causing a new infection in part of the individuals already infected by SARS-CoV-2, specifically between 25% and 61%. .

"You cannot explain so many cases except for the loss of immunity," specified Sabino, who also coordinated the study together with researcher Nuno Faria, from the University of Oxford.

The capital of the state of Amazonas has been the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil. The same story is told in both the first and second waves of the coronavirus, which have caused a health collapse since the end of last year due to the explosion of cases and admissions to the country's hospitals and clinics.

The research was supported by the São Paulo State Research Amparo Foundation (FAESP), and although it has not yet been reviewed by other scientists or published in journals of its kind, it is already available online.