SARS-CoV-2: genotipagem, identificação e padronização do sequenciamento das variantes circulantes do sudoeste do Paraná

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a health and economic crisis around the world. It emerged in 2019, in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China, caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This virus belongs to the Coronaviridae family, which has been known for more than 70 years to affect birds and mammals. In January 2020, the month following the onset of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Due to the high transmissibility of this virus, it is very important to monitor the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among recipients of human beings, mainly due to the incorporation of new variants, caused by genetic genes. This mutation process is already expected, generally slowly, to the point of taking years for the incorporation of new variations of the original genome of the virus, but with the accelerated circulation of the virus, the introduction of new variants is recurrent, as which can be classified as variants of interest (VOI) and variants of concern (VOC). These bacteria in the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus may favor viral transmissibility, affecting existing countermeasures against the virus, such as the vaccine, representing a greater risk to public health. Given this context, genomic surveillance is essential for coping with COVID-19. Therefore, the objective of this study was to carry out the genotyping of samples with a positive diagnosis, mainly from the Southwest of Paraná, for the identification and quantification of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants, performing a genomic monitoring through genetic sequencing, in addition to the collection epidemiological with the registration data of the patients, such as: age group, gender and geographic region. No personal data of the patient was used and/or exposed, thus preserving its integrity. The first step in carrying out this project was its approval by the Human Research Ethics Committee. After the approval, the research was started. Creating the Ômicron variant causes an alert in public health in Brazil. Epidemiological analyses show a heterogeneous geographic dispersion of the study sample, which has a mean age of 37.9, where 52% were women, and 47.3 were male. We evaluated the introduction of the Ômicron variant in the West and Center-South regions of Paraná, in particular the southwest of the state. A total of 407 SARS-CoV-2 samples from February 2022 to December 2022 were genotyped. The evolutionary analysis of the Ômicron genomes reveals that the Ômicron sublines have circulated in the state, corroborating what was observed throughout Brazil and the world. The study's results provoked the development of science and will provide data to the bodies responsible for public health, which, together with the control measures indicated by the WHO, will make it possible to effectively combat the COVID-19 pandemic.