By Sue-Ann Wayow
THERE are no official reports of the Indian variant of the Covid-19 virus in Venezuela.
This is according to Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram.
On Wednesday Dr Parasram said, “The WHO (World Health Organization) has put out an alert, they actually confirm which variants are in which part of the world. As of yesterday, they confirmed that the only variant in Venezuela was the P1 variant which is the Brazilian variant.”
He was speaking during the Ministry of Health virtual media conference.
International reports had quoted Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro saying that five women who crossed the Venezuelan-Colombian border were carriers of the Indian variant. Such reports raised concerns in Trinidad and Tobago especially with the issue of illegal immigration.
Dr Parasram added, “Any variant that comes into a country, the public health measures that we utilise to fight them are more or less the same. It is a fairly new variant in terms of the variants of concerns and again in terms of the efficacy of different vaccines , the data is not complete as to say which one will protect in the greatest way against the Indian variant in particular.”
Thee CMO encouraged all to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and the possible variants that may present themselves.
According to WHO, there are presently four variants of concerns observed last year, the South African first detected in May , the United Kingdom in September, the Indian in October and the Brazilian in November of 2020.
WHO states, “A SARS-CoV-2 variant has been demonstrated to be associated with one or more of the following changes at a degree of global public health significance, increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology or increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation or decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.”
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