At least 100 varieties of the new coronavirus arrived in Brazil through people traveling through different airports, but there are two types that have spread most in the country: those that came from Europe and the United States. Until then, there were two waves of spread of the virus here: the first was stronger, starting in February, and the second, with a lower rate of spread, probably as a result of the containment measures adopted from March onwards. This is what a study from the University of Oxford points out focused on sequencing Sars-Cov-2, which has the participation of the Laboratory for Studies of Emerging Viruses (LEVE) of the Institute of Biology (IB) at Unicamp, coordinated by professor José Luiz Proença Modena. In the interview, he talks about the advances in this research, which investigates the relationship between variants of the new coronavirus and more serious cases of the disease, and also seeks to understand what is behind the strong inflammation that covid-19 can generate in other organs. vital cells beyond the lungs, through what is called a “cytokine storm”. LEVE researchers have already managed to sequence 91 coronavirus genomes in the Campinas region so far, and intend to reach up to 500 or 600 samples, increasing the chances of finding answers to the many doubts that still surround Covid-19.
Video editing: Kléber Casablanca
