CategoryBrazil

Two young indigenous boys rescued after almost four weeks lost in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have been found and taken to hospital.

Glauco and Gleison Ferreira, eight and six, got lost trying to catch small birds in the jungle near Manicoré, Amazonas state, on 18 February.

A local tree cutter found them by chance on Tuesday.

They are expected to make a full recovery after being treated in hospital for malnourishment.

After the boys disappeared, hundreds of residents spent weeks looking for them.

But lost during the rainy season of the Amazon – a time which makes walking and moving in the jungle even more difficult than usual – they were nowhere to be found.

Emergency services decided to call off the search on 24 February, but locals continued to search for the boys, according to local media outlet Amazônia Real.

Almost four weeks later, the boys were found by a man cutting wood 6 km (3.7 miles) from the village of Palmeira in the Lago Capanã protected land reserve where the boys live with their parents, Amazônia Real adds.

One of the boys shouted for help when he heard the local man hitting the trees nearby. Following the calls, the man found the two boys lying on the rainforest floor, hungry and weak, with many skin abrasions.

According to local media, the two boys told their parents they had eaten nothing while lost and had had only rainwater to drink.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-60789542

This Monday, Brazil registered 98 new deaths from Covid-19, the lowest daily number of deaths from the disease since April last year, at the beginning of the pandemic in the country, informed the Ministry of Health.

The last time Brazil registered fewer than 100 deaths in one day by Covid-19 was on April 12 last year, with 94 deaths.

https://economia.uol.com.br/noticias/reuters/2021/11/01/brasil-registra-menos-de-100-mortes-diarias-por-covid-pela-primeira-vez-desde-abril-de-2020.htm

Just a few weeks ago, Covid-19 was spreading with alarming ease across a cluster of nations in South America, overwhelming hospital systems and killing thousands of people daily.

Suddenly, the region that had been the epicenter of the pandemic is breathing a sigh of relief.

New infections have fallen sharply in nearly every nation in South America as vaccination rates have ramped up. The reprieve has been so sharp and fast, even as the Delta variant wreaks havoc elsewhere in the world, that experts can’t quite explain it.

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay and Paraguay experienced dramatic surges of cases in the first months of the year, just as vaccines started to arrive in the region. Containment measures were uneven and largely lax because governments were desperate to jump-start languishing economies.

“Now the situation has cooled across South America,” said Carla Domingues, an epidemiologist who ran Brazil’s immunization program until 2019. “It’s a phenomenon we don’t know how to explain.”

In Brazil, which had a slow, chaotic vaccine rollout, nearly 64 percent of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, a rate that exceeds that of the United States.

In Chile and Uruguay, more than 70 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

As cases have dropped, schools in much of the region have resumed in-person classes. Airports are becoming busier as more people have started traveling for work and leisure.

The drop in caseloads led the United Nations this past week to provide a more optimistic projection of economic growth in the region. It now expects economies in Latin America and the Caribbean to grow by 5.9 percent this year, a slight increase from its 5.2 estimate in July.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/05/world/americas/covid-south-america-reprieve-vaccines.html

Brazil registered 411 deaths and 12,085 cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. The data were updated by the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) on Monday (9).

The number of new cases presented on Monday is the lowest since November 9, when the country confirmed 10,917 new cases of the disease in 24 hours. As for the number of deaths in 24 hours, the country registered today the lowest rate since January 8, when there were 867 deaths.

https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/saude/2021/08/09/brasil-registra-menor-numero-de-casos-de-covid-do-ano-em-24-horas

The number of daily deaths by Covid-19 in Brazil dropped 28.3% in a month, according to the 7-day rolling average released by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). The data show that on May 9th, the daily average stood at 2,100 deaths, down from 2,930 on April 9th.

In 14 days, the rolling average of deaths dropped 15.8%, given that on April 25th the daily number of deaths reached 2,495.

The peak of deaths was recorded on April 12th (3,124). Since then, records have been showing a downward trajectory.

https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/miscellaneous/covid-19/daily-covid-19-deaths-average-drops-28-in-one-month-in-brazil/

The University of Oxford has said existing COVID-19 vaccines may protect against the Brazilian coronavirus variant as the P1 strain may be less resistant to antibodies than first thought.

A study by the university – which jointly developed the AstraZeneca coronavirus jab with the British-Swedish firm – examined the impact of natural and vaccine-induced antibodies on different strains.

The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, measured the level of antibodies that can neutralise – or stop infection from – variants that are circulating in South Africa, Brazil and elsewhere.

It found that vaccines do not work as well against the variants as against the original strain of coronavirus, but that the P1 Brazilian variant may be less resistant to vaccine-induced antibodies than first feared.

“These data suggest that natural and vaccine-induced antibodies can still neutralise these variants, but at lower levels,” the university said.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-existing-coronavirus-jabs-may-protect-against-brazilian-variant-as-strain-may-be-less-resistant-to-antibodies-12249523