QCOSTARICA – A 28-year-old man from Alajuela and a 32-year-old woman from Heredia are the first two cases of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 variant originally detected in Brazil.
Both cases were detected in the microbiology laboratory of the National Children’s Hospital and according to the information provided by the Ministry of Health, the first patient presented symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, and myalgia, while the woman showed chills, cough, headache, taste disorders and myalgias.
The announcement was made by the coronavirus genomic surveillance network coordinated by Instituto Costarricense de Investigación y Enseñanza (Inciensa).
Francisco Duarte, coordinator of the Inciensa Laboratory said that it is not known if the patients left the country or if they had contact with a tourist.
“We are investigating. It is extremely important to be able to know what was the source of contagion, if it was at the local level or if it was brought from abroad. Personnel from the Ministry of Health are collaborating with us to carry out this type of investigation,” Duarte said.
In addition, Inciensa reported that three additional cases of the South African variant and one case of the UK variant were detected in Costa Ricans living in the cantons of Santo Domingo, Barva and San Pablo de Heredia.
To date, a total of 17 cases associated with variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been identified in the country.
Regarding the Brazilian variant known as the P1 lineage, experts reported that it has been associated with: greater transmissibility, a decrease in the effectiveness of neutralizing antibodies (evasion of the immune response) and cases of reinfection.