Monitoring the Establishment of VOC Gamma in Minas Gerais, Brazil: A Retrospective Epidemiological and Genomic Surveillance Study

Hugo José Alves; João Locke Ferreira de Araújo; Paula Luize Camargos Fonseca; Filipe Romero Rebello Moreira; Diego Menezes Bonfim; Daniel Costa Queiroz; Lucyene Miguita; Rafael Marques de Souza; Victor Emmanuel Viana Geddes; Walyson Coelho Costa; Jaqueline Silva de Oliveira; Eva Lídia Arcoverde Medeiros; Carolina Senra Alves de Souza; Juliana Wilke Saliba; André Luiz Menezes; Eneida Santos de Oliveira; Talita Emile Ribeiro Adelino; Natalia Rocha Guimaraes; Adriana Aparecida Ribeiro; Rennan Garcias Moreira; Danielle Alves Gomes Zauli; Joice do Prado Silva; Frederico Scott Varella Malta; Alessandro Clayton de Souza Ferreira; Ana Valesca Fernandes Gilson Silva; Poliane Alfenas-Zerbini; Flavia Oliveira de Souza; Adriano de Paula Sabino; Laura do Amaral Xavier; Natália Virtude Carobin; Alex Fiorini de Carvalho; Karine Lima Lourenço; Santuza Maria Ribeiro Teixeira; Ana Paula Salles Moura Fernandes; Flavio Guimarães da Fonseca; Jônatas Santos Abrahão; Felipe Campos de Melo Iani; Rodrigo Araújo Lima Rodrigues; Renan Pedra de Souza; Renato Santana Aguiar

Monitoring the Establishment of VOC Gamma in Minas Gerais, Brazil: A Retrospective Epidemiological and Genomic Surveillance Study

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&ndash:April 2021. We conducted a surveillance study in 1240 COVID-19-positive samples from 305 municipalities distributed across MG&rsquo: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.

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