Chile detects 11 COVID-19 variants with Gamma, Delta causing grave concern

Source: Xinhua| 2021-07-16 10:03:52|Editor: huaxia

SANTIAGO, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Chile has so far detected 11 COVID-19 variants this year, with the Gamma variant being the most widespread nationwide and the newly-arrived Delta strain posing a greater challenge due to its higher transmissibility.

"Chile is in a state of alert, like other countries where there are many variants," Sergio Wehinger, who has a doctorate in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Chile, told Xinhua.

Wehinger recommended that Chile study the international experience and "not relax restrictions" despite the sustained decline in infections reported in the past month thanks to lockdown and social distancing measures, as well as the massive vaccination campaign against COVID-19.

With decreasing cases, restrictions have been relaxed in some cities, where businesses and schools are reopening. The government also announced fewer restrictions on the more than 11 million people, who have been fully immunized.

However, the World Health Organization said Thursday the pandemic "is nowhere near finished" and warned of "the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control."

Chile's Ministry of Health last month issued a report that identified 11 variants in the country, based on genomic studies of samples from confirmed cases from Dec. 22, 2020 to June 25, 2021.

According to Wehinger, the variants emerged due to "a lack of sufficiently restrictive measures for entering or leaving the country, which can stop the arrival of new variants arising in other countries."

However, Wehinger, also the director of the Masters program in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Talca, added the appearance of variants "is normal" since "viruses are constantly mutating to adapt and survive."

The important thing, he said, is "to be attentive to those mutations that produce relevant changes in relation to the transmissibility, virulence or immune response of antibodies or vaccines."

Chile has so far registered 1,594,496 cases with 34,207 deaths. Enditem

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