AUTHOR=Molina-Mora Jose Arturo , Reales-González Jhonnatan , Camacho Erwin , Duarte-Martínez Francisco , Tsukayama Pablo , Soto-Garita Claudio , Brenes Hebleen , Cordero-Laurent Estela , Ribeiro dos Santos Andrea , Guedes Salgado Cláudio , Santos Silva Caio , Santana de Souza Jorge , Nunes Gisele , Negri Tatianne , Vidal Amanda , Oliveira Renato , Oliveira Guilherme , Muñoz-Medina José Esteban , Salas-Lais Angel Gustavo , Mireles-Rivera Guadalupe , Sosa Ezequiel , Turjanski Adrián , Monzani María Cecilia , Carobene Mauricio G. , Remes Lenicov Federico , Schottlender Gustavo , Fernández Do Porto Darío A. , Kreuze Jan Frederik , Sacristán Luisa , Guevara-Suarez Marcela , Cristancho Marco , Campos-Sánchez Rebeca , Herrera-Estrella Alfredo TITLE=Overview of the SARS-CoV-2 genotypes circulating in Latin America during 2021 JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=11 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1095202 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2023.1095202 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=

Latin America is one of the regions in which the COVID-19 pandemic has a stronger impact, with more than 72 million reported infections and 1.6 million deaths until June 2022. Since this region is ecologically diverse and is affected by enormous social inequalities, efforts to identify genomic patterns of the circulating SARS-CoV-2 genotypes are necessary for the suitable management of the pandemic. To contribute to the genomic surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 in Latin America, we extended the number of SARS-CoV-2 genomes available from the region by sequencing and analyzing the viral genome from COVID-19 patients from seven countries (Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru). Subsequently, we analyzed the genomes circulating mainly during 2021 including records from GISAID database from Latin America. A total of 1,534 genome sequences were generated from seven countries, demonstrating the laboratory and bioinformatics capabilities for genomic surveillance of pathogens that have been developed locally. For Latin America, patterns regarding several variants associated with multiple re-introductions, a relatively low percentage of sequenced samples, as well as an increment in the mutation frequency since the beginning of the pandemic, are in line with worldwide data. Besides, some variants of concern (VOC) and variants of interest (VOI) such as Gamma, Mu and Lambda, and at least 83 other lineages have predominated locally with a country-specific enrichments. This work has contributed to the understanding of the dynamics of the pandemic in Latin America as part of the local and international efforts to achieve timely genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2.