The Covid-19 pandemic has not only created waves of health disasters in various places in the world, but has also spawned variants of the Covid-19 virus from time to time. For example, Delta, Omicron, or the new B.2 variant known as the stealth variant.
No wonder this virus is called so tough with updates that never stop. Researchers have even stated that there are more mutations in the Covid-19 virus than they thought, especially when compared to other coronaviruses.
Infectious disease researcher Sebastian Duchene of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia said viruses usually tend to mutate at a relatively constant rate.
He said it may take a year or more for a new virus variant to emerge.
This is what is not seen in the Covid-19 virus.
“The Delta variant, for example, emerged within just six weeks of its ancestral form,” Duchene said Science Alert.
In a new study, Duchene and co-researchers sought to investigate why the virus could mutate so rapidly, by analyzing genome sequence data for SARS-CoV-2, in four variants: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.
The researchers then released their paper led by first author John Tay, a bioinformatics researcher at the Doherty Institute.
According to the team, the secret to accelerating viral mutations is not a constant or ongoing phenomenon. This acceleration appears to have occurred temporarily in the evolution of the virus, shortly before the variant emerged.
“We found strong evidence that it was episodic, rather than long-term,” the team wrote.
Why did the mutation explosion occur?
Researchers aren’t entirely sure yet, but they say the emergence of new variants is driven by natural selection. Other relevant factors could include the occurrence of infection in an unvaccinated population so that the virus can spread and multiply more easily.
Then there are infections in certain individuals, such as patients with compromised immune systems, which can cause changes in the dynamics of the virus.
Although much is still not fully understood about the factors that trigger so many rapid mutations in SARS-CoV-2, researchers say it is important to continue to monitor the viral genomics.
By doing so, humanity could stop the next wave.
“Imagine if you could detect Omicron in the first few patients – if you could have prevented it from spreading from there, then we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now,” Duchene told The Sydney Morning Herald.
(ryh / vws)
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