The Rio Municipal Health Department (SMS-Rio) confirmed today (20) the first imported case of the Ômicron variant. This is a 27-year-old Brazilian woman, resident in Chicago, in the United States, and who sought care at a municipal health unit as soon as she arrived in Brazil, on the 13th of this month. 
In a note, the secretariat informed that she has mild symptoms, under monitoring by the Health Surveillance of SMS-Rio and in home isolation. All screened contacts tested negative.
According to the vaccine schedule presented, the woman, whose identity was not revealed, took the second dose of the vaccine against covid-19 in March of this year and did not take the booster dose.
In Brazil, the Ministry of Health announced last weekend, the application interval reduction of the third dose of covid-19 vaccine from five to four months.
What does Anvisa say?
According to the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), the first observations indicate that the Ômicron variant spreads more easily than the original Sars-CoV-2 virus and than variants such as Delta.
More data is still needed to know whether infections with the variant cause more serious illnesses or more deaths than infections with other variants. It is also not known if there will be reinfections and infections emerging in people fully vaccinated against covid-19. the variant micron has been detected in 90 countries to date.
This month, Anvisa reaffirmed the importance of vaccination and the use of non-pharmacological measures, such as the use of masks, social distance and hand hygiene. That’s because covid-19 spreads through close contact with people who have the virus, even those who don’t have symptoms.
