On Friday (14), the Brazilian government announced the temporary suspension of flights from India, South Africa and the United Kingdom, due to the risk of the spread of the variant of the coronavirus identified in the Asian country. as B.1.617 and classified as being of global concern by the WHO. (World Health Organization).
The measure is valid for 14 days and aims to avoid the epidemiological impact that the new strain could cause in Brazil, which, according to the initiative of the media consortium, reached the mark of 432,785 deaths and 15,521,313 cases of Covid on Friday. 19.
The suspension of flights, according to a decree published in the additional edition of the Official Journal this Friday, follows a recommendation from Anvisa (National Agency for Health Surveillance).
The authorization to travel abroad to the Federative Republic of Brazil is temporarily suspended, coming from or in transit from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Republic of Africa South and Republic of India over the past fourteen years. days, ”says the ordinance.
The measure does not apply to the operation of cargo flights, which must be carried out by workers wearing personal protective equipment. The decision was signed by Ministers Luiz Eduardo Ramos (Civil House), Anderson Gustavo Torres (Justice and Public Security) and Marcelo Queiroga (Health).
B.1.617 has spread to the Asian country, causing a record number of infections and deaths from Covid-19. More than 22 million Indians have already contracted the coronavirus and the daily deaths are around 4,000.
Outside India and the United Kingdom, subtypes of the variant have already been sequenced in Australia, Singapore, the United States, Germany and Russia, according to the monitoring of the Genomic Pathogen Surveillance Center in the south. of Cambridgeshire.
There are now seven variants of concern: two identified in Brazil (P.1 and P.2), the United Kingdom, South Africa, California, New York and India.