<p>The number of Covid-19 patients under 40 in intensive care in Brazil surpassed older groups last month, a researcher said Sunday, amid a deadly surge driven partly by a new coronavirus variant.</p>.<p>The number of people aged 39 or younger in intensive care units with Covid-19 in March rose sharply to more than 11,000, or 52.2 per cent of the total, said the Brazilian ICU Project.</p>.<p>That was up from 14.6 per cent of total ICU patients early in the pandemic and around 45 per cent from September through February.</p>.<p>"Previously, this was a population that would typically only develop a less-severe form of the disease and would not need intensive care. So the increase for this age group is very significant," said Dr. Ederlon Rezende, co-coordinator of the project, an initiative of the Brazilian Association of Intensive Medicine (AMIB).</p>.<p>He said various factors could be driving the increase.</p>.<p>Patients over 80, who fell from 13.6 per cent to 7.8 per cent of the total in Brazil's ICUs in March, are now largely vaccinated.</p>.<p>Young people are also more likely to expose themselves to the virus, whether because they have to leave home to work or believe they are less vulnerable, he said.</p>.<p>Another factor may be the new Brazilian variant, known as P1, which experts say is partly responsible for the country's Covid-19 death toll exploding in March.</p>.<p>The numbers suggest that P1, which can re-infect people who have had the original strain of the virus, may also be more virulent, Rezende said.</p>.<p>"The patients arriving in ICUs now are younger, have no pre-existing conditions and are developing more severe cases of the virus, too," he told AFP.</p>.<p>The number of ICU patients without pre-existing conditions increased by nearly a third in March, to 30.3 percent of the total.</p>.<p>And the proportion of patients put on ventilators reached a pandemic record of 58.1 percent in March, according to the project's data.</p>.<p>Brazil registered more than 66,500 Covid-19 deaths in March, more than double the hard-hit country's previous monthly record in July 2020.</p>.<p>The disease has claimed a total of 351,000 lives in the country of 212 million people, a death toll second only to that of the United States.</p>
<p>The number of Covid-19 patients under 40 in intensive care in Brazil surpassed older groups last month, a researcher said Sunday, amid a deadly surge driven partly by a new coronavirus variant.</p>.<p>The number of people aged 39 or younger in intensive care units with Covid-19 in March rose sharply to more than 11,000, or 52.2 per cent of the total, said the Brazilian ICU Project.</p>.<p>That was up from 14.6 per cent of total ICU patients early in the pandemic and around 45 per cent from September through February.</p>.<p>"Previously, this was a population that would typically only develop a less-severe form of the disease and would not need intensive care. So the increase for this age group is very significant," said Dr. Ederlon Rezende, co-coordinator of the project, an initiative of the Brazilian Association of Intensive Medicine (AMIB).</p>.<p>He said various factors could be driving the increase.</p>.<p>Patients over 80, who fell from 13.6 per cent to 7.8 per cent of the total in Brazil's ICUs in March, are now largely vaccinated.</p>.<p>Young people are also more likely to expose themselves to the virus, whether because they have to leave home to work or believe they are less vulnerable, he said.</p>.<p>Another factor may be the new Brazilian variant, known as P1, which experts say is partly responsible for the country's Covid-19 death toll exploding in March.</p>.<p>The numbers suggest that P1, which can re-infect people who have had the original strain of the virus, may also be more virulent, Rezende said.</p>.<p>"The patients arriving in ICUs now are younger, have no pre-existing conditions and are developing more severe cases of the virus, too," he told AFP.</p>.<p>The number of ICU patients without pre-existing conditions increased by nearly a third in March, to 30.3 percent of the total.</p>.<p>And the proportion of patients put on ventilators reached a pandemic record of 58.1 percent in March, according to the project's data.</p>.<p>Brazil registered more than 66,500 Covid-19 deaths in March, more than double the hard-hit country's previous monthly record in July 2020.</p>.<p>The disease has claimed a total of 351,000 lives in the country of 212 million people, a death toll second only to that of the United States.</p>