SAO PAULO — Brazil has detected a new COVID-19 variant in Sao Paulo state that is similar to the one first seen in South Africa, the head of the state’s Butantan biomedical institute said Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference the day after Brazil suffered a record 3,780 deaths in a day, Butantan President Dimas Covas said the patient with the variant had no history of travel to South Africa.
The South African variant has alarmed public health experts as there are questions over how effective current vaccines are against it. Brazil is also grappling with its own homegrown variant, called P1, which appears to be fueling a record-breaking run of infections.
“It is a variant s…
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