MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Coronavirus Delta variant detected in Argentine city Mar del Plata

There is no community circulation in the municipality of General Pueyrredón

The first two cases of the coronavirus Delta variant have been detected in the Argentine beach resort and seaport of Mar del Plata. Both infections were spotted in travellers arriving from the United States.

Local health authorities reported the patients were a 48-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man who has reportedly observed the mandatory isolation upon arriving back into the country before being discharged.

”Fortunately, they were under control, which is why the variant is not circulating in (the municipality of) General Pueyrredon as a result of these two cases,“ Sanitary Region VIII head Gastón Vargas told the media.

The two cases are a mother and his son. They had both been vaccinated, and only showed mild symptoms of COVID-19, one of them even deemed as almost asymptomatic.

Vargas explained samples of people who “had tested positive for Covid” were sent to the Malbrán Institute in Buenos Aires, while the patients remained in isolation. ”This study takes a few days, in fact, the people have surely already completed the isolation and are already discharged due to the time elapsed, but the information that comes to us, in this case, is that these two travellers were positive for the Delta variant,” he added.

The official also pointed out there was no cause for alarm since it was not something which “arose in a person who went randomly to get swabbed” but were rather “within the control device provided for travellers coming from abroad.”

Vargas also highlighted the fact that both cases had been isolated, thus preventing “the variant from circulating” locally, which “means that the health policy used in these cases works.”