Reuters reported 1,972 COVID-19 daily deaths in Brazil on March 9, 2020. Its news team quoted Rio de Janeiro-based research institute FIOCRUZ saying intensive care wards are running out of space. Brazil needs a solution for a situation apparently spinning out of control. But now there’s evidence suggesting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine neutralizes the Brazil variant. Could this be hope?
How Serious Is the COVID-19 Situation in Brazil?
The Oswald Cruz Foundation FIOCRUZ is arguably one of the world’s main public health research institutions. We can therefore take them at their word, when they say ICU’s in 15 Brazil states are over 90% capacity. And the cities of Porto Alegre (one-and-a-half million people) and Campo Grande (three-quarter million) have no more beds to spare.
Brazil is in need of a solution, and Washington Post thinks they may have found it at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. There, researchers say they witnessed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine neutralizing the Brazil variant in a laboratory. However, they collaborated with U.S. firm Pfizer and German partner BioNTech using artificially engineered viruses, not the actual highly infectious variant.
How Pfizer BioNTech Neutralized the Brazil Variant
The study results appeared in New England Medical Journal on March 8, 2021. The research was done under laboratory conditions. And there’s therefore no proof of the findings repeating under real-life conditions. Nonetheless, the study does suggest we might find evidence if we looked.
The University of Texas Medical Branch researchers emphasize their work still needs real-world validation. And we are therefore far from the point of believing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will somehow miraculously clear Brazil’s ICU wards.
There have been 10,551,259 confirmed COVID cases in Brazil since the virus arrived on February 25, 2020, according to Wikipedia. Some 254,942 of those people died, 846,821 cases are still active, and the fatality rate is 2.4%.
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Preview Image: Brazil’s Dark Spot on the Map
