Reports from Britain and South Africa of a new strain of the coronavirus that appears to spread more easily are raising concern, but epidemiologists say it is not clear at this time whether it really is a new strain, whether it jeopardizes the effectiveness of vaccines or if it can make the disease more serious.
Viruses evolve naturally as they spread through the population, some more than others. That’s one reason a new flu vaccine is required each year.
New variants, or strains, of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease have been seen since it was first detected in China nearly a year ago.
On Saturday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new restrictions due to the new strain, and several European Union countries have suspended or limited flights from Britain to try to contain any spread.
Here is what is known about the situation:
WHAT IS THE CONCERN ABOUT THE NEW STRAIN FOUND IN ENGLAND?
Health experts in Britain and the United States said the strain appears to spread more easily than the others, but there is no evidence yet that it is more lethal.
Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, noted that the strain “moves fast and is becoming the dominant variant”, causing more than 60% of infections in London by December.
The strain is also of concern because it has many mutations – nearly two dozen – and some are in the spikey protein that the virus uses to attach itself to and infect cells. That protein is the target of current vaccines.
“Of course I’m concerned about this,” but it’s too early to know how important it will be in the long run, said Dr. Ravi Gupta, who studies viruses at the University of Cambridge in England. He and other researchers posted a report on the new strain on a website that scientists use to quickly share any developments, but the document has not been formally reviewed or published in any medical or scientific journal.
HOW ARE THESE NEW STRAINS PRODUCED?
Viruses often acquire small changes of a letter or two in their genetic alphabet simply through normal evolution. A slightly modified strain may become the most common in a country or region only because it is the one that first took root there or because “high spread” events helped it take hold.
Of greater concern is when a virus mutates by modifying the proteins on its surface to help it bypass drugs or the immune system.
“Emerging evidence” indicates that this could be happening with the new coronavirus, tweeted Trevor Bedford, a biologist and geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “We have now seen the emergence and spread of various variants” that hint at this, and some show resistance to antibody treatments, he noted.
WHAT OTHER STRAINS HAVE EMERGED?
In April, researchers in Sweden found a virus with two genetic changes that appeared to make it almost twice as infectious, Gupta said. About 6,000 cases of that strain of coronavirus have been reported worldwide, mainly in Denmark and England, he added.
Several variants of that strain have already emerged. Some of those cases were of people who were infected in mink farms in Denmark. A new strain in South Africa has two modifications that have been seen before, plus some new ones.
The one in Britain has both modifications and more, including eight in the spiky protein, Gupta said. It is called a “variant under investigation” because it is not yet known how significant it is.
The strain was identified in southeastern England in September and has been circulating in the area ever since, a World Health Organization official told the BBC on Sunday.
CAN PEOPLE WHO HAD COVID-19 FROM AN OLD STRAIN GET THE NEW? WILL THIS DAMAGE THE EFFECT OF VACCINES?
Probably not, Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“It’s unlikely,” agreed Gupta.
Vivek Murthy, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for director of public health, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “there is no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against this virus ”.
Vaccines elicit a wide range of responses from the immune system beyond that of the spikey protein, several medical experts noted.
The possibility of new strains being resistant to existing vaccines is low, but not “nonexistent,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific advisor to the US government’s vaccination campaign, on the “State of the Union” program. from CNN.
“So far, I don’t think there has been a single variant that was resistant,” he said. “This particular variant in Britain, I think, is very unlikely to have escaped the immunity that the vaccine provides.”
Bedford agreed.
“I’m not worried” because it would probably take a lot of changes in the genetic code to undermine a vaccine, not just one or two mutations, Bedford tweeted. But vaccines may need to be updated over time as modifications accumulate, and changes should be more closely monitored, he wrote.
Murthy said the new strain does not imply modifying the health authorities’ recommendations on wearing masks, washing hands and maintaining social distancing.
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