Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Not yet over the problem of the spread of the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus, the world community is faced with another new variant called Lambda. A recent study by a team of Japanese researchers suggests that Lambda can penetrate currently available vaccine protection.
The study, yet to be peer reviewed, was published July 28 in bioRxiv. The researchers revealed the Lambda variant spread in 26 countries including Chile, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador.
Last April 2021, the Peruvian authorities said 81% of the country’s Covid-19 cases were related to the Lambda variant. According to a research team from Japan , “the vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high, the percentage of people receiving at least one dose of the vaccine is about 60%”.
However, there has been a spike in cases in Chile. This suggests that the Lambda variant can ‘escape’ the antiviral immunity generated by vaccination.
Meanwhile, the Delta variant showed increased viral infection and higher resistance to vaccine-induced neutralization.
“Here we show that the Lambda variant complements not only infection but is also resistant to antiviral immunity,” said the study, quoted from Fox29, Monday (16/8/2021).
In a separate study led by Chinese epidemiologist Jing Lu, the Delta variant had 1,000 times more viral material than the original coronavirus variant last year.
At the outset, WHO officials said not much was known about the impact of the Lambda variant. However, there is a potential for increased transmission or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies compared to the original Covid-19 strain.
According to the researchers, further research is needed to understand the issue of Lambda variants.
The initial study, one from New York University published July 2, suggests Lambda may be slightly resistant to antibodies produced by the mRNA vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But the study concluded Lambda would not be sufficient to cause a significant loss of protection against infection.
“So far we have seen no indication that the Lambda variant is more aggressive. It is possible that it shows a higher infection rate, but we don’t have enough data to compare it to Gamma or Delta,” said WHO virologist Jairo Mendez-Rico.
(roy/roy)
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