CategoryBrazil

Young brothers found in Amazon after nearly four weeks

Y

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

Brazil Records Less Than 100 Daily Covid Deaths For The First Time Since April 2020

B

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

Brazil vaccinates 50% of the population

B

Brazil reached, this Wednesday (20), the mark of 50% of the general population with complete vaccination against Covid-19 . The information is from a survey conducted by the CNN Agency based on data from the state health departments across the country.

The index includes those vaccinated with the two-dose regimen (Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Coronavac) and the single dose ( Janssen vaccine ). According to the balance, 106,764,063 people have already received the second dose or single dose in the country.

In relation to the population able to be vaccinated , which considers individuals over 12 years of age, the percentage of fully immunized is 69.3%. According to the Ministry of Health, 110,980,594 Brazilians have the complete vaccination schedule.

The vaccination campaign against the disease caused by the new coronavirus began in Brazil on January 17 this year.

https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/saude/brasil-tem-50-da-populacao-totalmente-imunizada-contra-a-covid-19/

South America sees sharp drop in infections

S

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

City of São Paulo immunizes more than 500,000 people in 34 hours; 99.2% of adults received at least one dose

C

After 34 uninterrupted hours with the “Virada da Vacina”, more than 500 thousand people over 18 were immunized against Covid-19 in the city of São Paulo, according to Edson Aparecido, municipal secretary of Health.

“We have just closed the numbers of Virada da Vacina. 471,350 doses were registered in our system, we still have 32 thousand doses that did not go up in the system. We exceeded 500 thousand doses applied in 34 hours in the capital”, said the secretary.

According to the balance of the secretariat, were applied in the “Virada” 404,398 first doses, 67,020 second doses and 13 single doses. Another 32 thousand doses were applied, but had not yet been released in the city’s system until the last update of this article.

According to Aparecido, with this, the city reaches 99.2% of the population over 18 years old with at least one dose of the vaccine against Covid applied. “Now we intend, Monday and Tuesday, to finish completing the vaccination to reach 100% of people over 18 with the first dose in the capital.”

https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2021/08/15/virada-da-vacina-na-cidade-de-sp-imuniza-mais-de-500-mil-pessoas-em-34-horas-985percent-dos-adultos-receberam-ao-menos-uma-dose.ghtml

Brazil records the lowest number of Covid cases since November 2020

B

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

São Paulo Brazil vaccinates 75% of the adult population against COVID-19

S

The State of São Paulo has already vaccinated 75% of the adult population in the vaccination campaign against COVID-19. The number indicates that for every four people aged 18 or over, three have already received at least one dose of the immunizing agent. This is what the Vacinometer showed at 5:16 pm this Monday (26).

Among this group, 26% already have a complete vaccine schedule, consisting of two doses in the case of immunizing agents from Butantan/Coronavac, Fiocruz/Astrazeneca/Oxford and Pfizer, or a single dose from Janssen.

The balance of this afternoon shows more than 25.39 million applications of the first dose, 8.38 million of the second and more than 1 million of a single dose.

The adult population of SP is 35.3 million, according to IBGE estimates for 2020, and the Government of the State of São Paulo wants to vaccinate this public with at least one dose by August 20th.

https://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/noticias-vacina/sp-vacina-75-da-populacao-adulta-contra-covid-19/

Brazil’s average daily Covid-19 deaths drops 28% in last 30 days

B

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/

Existing coronavirus jabs may protect against Brazilian variant as strain ‘may be less resistant to antibodies’

E

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

Lab test shows Pfizer Covid vaccine is effective against Brazil variant

L

The coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was able to combat a new variant that was rapidly circulating in Brazil, a new study has found.

The research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the engineered version of the virus, containing the same mutation carried on the spike protein as the highly contagious P1 variant first identified in Brazil, was effectively neutralised among people who were given the jab.

The new variants are observed to carry changes in the spike, which is used by the virus to enter the human cells. These changes, in turn, affects how transmissible the virus is and therefore, is the primary target of the many coronavirus vaccines.

Scientists from the two companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch said that the neutralising ability of the vaccine on the new variant was equivalent to the effect on the less contagious version of the virus from the last year.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-brazil-variant-pfizer-vaccine-b1814332.html