And with his new laptop, Gladden will be able to continue online classes, something that is a result of the ongoing pandemic. A new variant was discovered in Belize back in March, and recently, it was announced that the samples were the Epsilon variant.
And while that may sound concerning, Dr Natalia Beer from the Ministry of Health and Wellness explained that it's not on their radar. She told us that there are variants of concern and variants of interest, two classifications that explain just how dangerous the variant is. She told us more about this via Zoom.
Dr. Natalia Beer, technical Advisor, Maternal and Child Health
"We reported 3 cases of persons that were positive and the samples was sent for sequencing and they test positive for the Epsilon variant, but when we review the current list of the variant of concern, Epsilon is no longer there. When we review the current list of variant of interest, the Epsilon is not listed there and then, so since June 2021, no country have reported Epsilon variant. So this means although we received the report recently and these samples are drawn in March then it means that at that time it was detected, but we would have to wait on the other samples that were sent recently to see if they pick up any other type of variant circulating in Belize. Epsilon is not in the current list of the variants of interest. It's not in the current list of variants of concern."
Reporter
"With all the swabbing that's been done since March has it shown up in anybody else over the past few months?"
Dr. Natalia Beer
"Yesterday we were talking with Dr. Morazan, she is the director of the Central Medical Laboratory and she was explaining to the audience that when we run the test for persons suspicions of having covid19 and depending on the level of antigens that are measured then certain samples are separated and sent for further sequencing and that process is not too fast, it takes time. Currently, Dr. Morazan shared with us that we are sending samples to Brazil, 50 samples per month is the Belize quota and the rest of samples are being run by the Baylor University, so we just have to continue waiting on the results of these samples that are sent."
