The interdisciplinary group of 10 scientists from Brazil and Mexico, among them four from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) - Serbian Pontes Ribeiro, Alcides Castro e Silva, Alexandre Barbosa Reis, and Wendel Coura-Vital - has just concluded a mathematical model that describes the dynamics of dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 through the air transportation network.
The model presents some alarming predictions for transmission in Brazil, but also points to possible solutions if a strict protocol of entry surveillance and monitoring of people arriving from regions of risk, now national and international, is implemented at airports. The group of researchers is composed of virologists, geneticists, microbiologists, physicists and ecologists. The team addressed the problem of the spreading of the coronavirus pandemic throughout the Brazilian territory.
The researchers advocate the implementation of such protocols at major airports - which, if done now, can efficiently protect the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.
MAIN CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY
1 - The lack of strict airport health control has made Brazil more vulnerable than other tropical developing countries, both those with similar airport networks but with a much larger population size, such as India (Asia), and those with a similar population size but simpler airport network, such as Nigeria (Africa);
2 - Brazilian airport network has high capillarity and allows the rapid spreading of diseases;
3 - Air transportation has a strong centrality in the capitals and large cities of the Southeast Region, which will cause an exponential dynamic of infection in several cities at the same time. The first case in Brazil was registered on February 26th and, according to the model, if nothing else is done in a synchronous way, most of the big cities in the east and south could be largely infected around the 50th day and become contaminant for the other cities, connected by the complex network of airports. This pattern would cause the collapse of health services in cities with the best equipped hospitals;
4 - Consequently, the structure of the air network would cause two waves of contamination, with a rapid spread of the disease in the country between the 65th and 80th day after the first case (which would be between April 1st and May 16th). The first wave would be due to the great daily increase of the disease after 50 days, as already described, in the most densely connected cities (which receive the majority of international flights), around April 16th. The second wave would occur after 90 days (May 26th), in the most peripheral cities, including the entire Amazon and Midwest region. The fact that these regions are hit in a second wave is the good news, because there is more time to organize a health response for these regions, which are also the most vulnerable from the public health perspective;
5 - Specifically for the Amazon, the city of Manaus is a regional clustering of the network, capable of spreading the coronavirus to the most remote parts of the Amazon Region, exposing, in a short time, a considerable amount of indigenous populations. Covid-19 can be even more devastating for these ethnic groups, which are generally more susceptible to non-native diseases. Similarly, remote cities and towns are also the most exposed to precarious public health services. Many indigenous leaders and organizations are already demanding specific actions to protect them. Severe surveillance and monitoring at the two airports in Manaus is a good start. The message is that there is still time to reverse this situation of vulnerability to SARS-Cov-2 in Brazil, at least for the populations of the most remote regions in the country.
Read the entire article: “Severe airport sanitarian control could slow down the spreading of COVID-19 pandemics in Brazil”.
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