Monitoring the Establishment of VOC Gamma in Minas Gerais, Brazil: A Retrospective Epidemiological and Genomic Surveillance Study.
Hugo José AlvesJoão Locke Ferreira de AraújoPaula Luize Camargos FonsecaFilipe Romero Rebello MoreiraDiego Menezes BonfimDaniel Costa QueirozLucyene MiguitaRafael Marques de SouzaVictor Emmanuel Viana GeddesWalyson Coelho CostaJaqueline Silva de OliveiraEva Lídia Arcoverde MedeirosCarolina Senra Alves de SouzaJuliana Wilke SalibaAndré Luiz MenezesEneida Santos de OliveiraTalita Emile Ribeiro AdelinoNatalia Rocha GuimaraesAdriana Aparecida RibeiroRennan Garcias MoreiraDanielle Alves Gomes ZauliJoice do Prado SilvaFrederico Scott Varella MaltaAlessandro Clayton de Souza FerreiraAna Valesca Fernandes Gilson SilvaPoliane Alfenas-ZerbiniFlavia Oliveira de SouzaAdriano de Paula SabinoLaura do Amaral XavierNatália Virtude CarobinAlex Fiorini de CarvalhoKarine Lima LourençoSantuza Maria Ribeiro TeixeiraAna Paula Salles Moura FernandesFlavio Guimarães da FonsecaJonatas Santos AbrahaoFelipe Campos de Melo IaniRodrigo Araújo Lima RodriguesRenan Pedra de SouzaRenato Santana de AguiarPublished in: Viruses (2022)
Since its first identification in Brazil, the variant of concern (VOC) Gamma has been associated with increased infection and transmission rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. Minas Gerais (MG), the second-largest populated Brazilian state with more than 20 million inhabitants, observed a peak of cases and deaths in March-April 2021. We conducted a surveillance study in 1240 COVID-19-positive samples from 305 municipalities distributed across MG's 28 Regional Health Units (RHU) between 1 March to 27 April 2021. The most common variant was the VOC Gamma (71.2%), followed by the variant of interest (VOI) zeta (12.4%) and VOC alpha (9.6%). Although the predominance of Gamma was found in most of the RHUs, clusters of Zeta and Alpha variants were observed. One Alpha-clustered RHU has a history of high human mobility from countries with Alpha predominance. Other less frequent lineages, such as P.4, P.5, and P.7, were also identified. With our genomic characterization approach, we estimated the introduction of Gamma on 7 January 2021, at RHU Belo Horizonte. Differences in mortality between the Zeta, Gamma and Alpha variants were not observed. We reinforce the importance of vaccination programs to prevent severe cases and deaths during transmission peaks.