A new variant of covid-19 has been detected in New York. Scientists worry that it will make vaccines less effective.
Researchers call it B.1.526 but it is already called the New York variant. A new covid-19 mutation has been detected in the American city and in the northeastern United States by two teams of scientists and is spreading rapidly.
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The two studies – conducted by the California Institute of Technology and Columbia University – have not yet been published in scientific journals but their findings are already cause for concern because this new strain of the coronavirus carries the E484K mutation, also detected on the South African and Brazilian variants. This could make vaccines less effective and lead to a poorer immune response in the body to covid-19. Treatment with monoclonal antibodies, tested in France and authorized in the United States, could also be less effective in the face of this mutation, relate CNN.
“We observe a stable increase in the detection of this variant between the end of December and mid-February with an alarming increase of up to 12.7% [de ce variant dans les cas positifs détectés] these last two weeks ”, is it written in the report of the researchers of the University of Columbia, quoted by the American chain. “The concern is that it substitutes for other strains, as has been observed with the British and South African variants,” explained Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS research center in Columbia, stressing that scientists currently did not have enough data on this variant in their possession to confirm this with certainty. The United States is the country most bereaved by covid-19 with 508,314 deaths since the start of the global pandemic almost a year ago.
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