Situation Report Azores Wednesday 25th May 2022
From our colleague in the Azores
Covid-19
In the seven days from Friday 13th of May until Thursday 19th of May there were 991 new positive cases of Covid-19 registered in the Azores, and a total of 9,718 tests performed. 3,826 people have recovered, and one death has been recorded bringing the total to 111. There are a total of 4,546 active cases, 991 more than last week.
There are 24 patients in the region’s hospitals and none in the ICU.
93,180 people in the region have had Covid, that’s over a third of the population.
REGIONAL HEALTH DIRECTORATE, 2nd Dose of the Booster vaccine for COVID-19
Starts this Monday in Terceira and Santa Maria islands, the administration of the 2nd dose of reinforcement of the vaccine against Covid-19.
In the following days, the same will happen in the remaining islands, so that next week, the process will cover the entire archipelago.
Immediately, the 2nd booster dose is intended for people aged 80 or older, and residents of Residential Structures for the Elderly (ERPI), including people who have recovered from infection with SARS-COV-The primary purpose of administration currently is to protect against severe illness and death from COVID-19 in these most at-risk and vulnerable populations.
Entrepreneurs from São Jorge want “immediate liquidity support” for companies
Businesspeople from São Jorge, in the Azores, today claimed “immediate liquidity support” for companies on the island that have been affected by the seismic volcanic crisis, justifying that the situation “has had immediate repercussions on the local economy” and could continue.
Monkeypox virus belongs to less aggressive strain
Microbiologist João Paulo Gomes said that the Monkeypox virus circulating in several countries, including Portugal, where it is not endemic, belongs to a less aggressive lineage originating in West Africa.
“This is the least severe form of the virus”, the researcher at the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (Insa) told Lusa, in Lisbon, where the team he directs sequenced the Monkeypox genome at the origin of the recent outbreak, making Portugal the first country to do so.
João Paulo Gomes, responsible for the Genomics and Bioinformatics Nucleus at the Insurgent Disease Department, where the work was carried out, added that the virus currently circulating in countries where it is not endemic is of the virus lineage circulating in West Africa, where is endemic, but less aggressive.
There is a second lineage of Monkeypox, from Central Africa, where it is also endemic, which is more aggressive.
According to Insa experts, who have already sequenced the Monkeypox genome of 10 infected people, the outbreak virus detected this month “is most closely related to viruses associated with the export of Monkeypox virus from Nigeria to several countries in 2018 and 2019, namely the United Kingdom, Israel and Singapore”.
João Paulo Gomes said that “potentially this is a single introduction” of the virus, imported, “which originated chains of transmission that later spread to several countries”.
The researcher stressed that the virus at the origin of the current outbreak “appeared very recently”, but “is evolving” rapidly, “accumulating genetic mutations”, when, due to “inherent characteristics”, Monkeypox “is a virus that typically has a lower mutation rate”.
“In theory, it evolves more than we expected. Eventually we will be able to realize that these genomic characteristics may be associated with greater transmissibility, we still don’t know”, he underlined, pointing out genomic sequencing as a “fundamental tool to support the decision of public health”.
According to João Paulo Gomes, “it is important that all countries sequence, release the genetic sequences” of the virus and “make a public sharing” of the data “so that the history of this outbreak can be quickly constructed, understand which country of origin was, understand where [the virus] was introduced in Europe and the rest of the world and what was the chronology in terms of spread across the various countries”.
The microbiologist considers that “there is no cause for concern”, but “above all, a reason to act, to block the chains of transmission, to carry out strong surveillance and quickly dismiss all suspected cases”.
“There is no doubt that over the next few weeks we will see a very aggressive evolution of this situation, but the characteristics of the transmission of the virus do not predict that its containment will be very difficult”, he maintained, remembering that “direct, very close contact ” for transmission to occur between people.