A new form of coronavirus is spreading rapidly in New York City, and there is a worrying change that could weaken the vaccine’s effectiveness, two teams of researchers have found.
The new form, known as B.1.526, first appeared in samples collected in the city in November. As of the middle of this month, it accounts for one in four viral sequences appearing in a database shared by scientists.
A study of the new variable, led by a group of techies, was posted online on Tuesday. The second, by researchers at Columbia University, has been submitted to a preprint server, but has not yet been made public.
Neither the study has been examined by peer review nor has it been published in any scientific journal. But consistent results suggest the spread of the variable is real, experts said.
“That’s not particularly good news.” Were not involved in the new research, said Michelle Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University. “But it’s good to know about it because then we can do something about it.”
Dr. Nussenweig said there are more concerns about its variant in New York, which is spreading rapidly in California. Another new type of infectious disease found in Britain is now reported in about 45,000 cases in 45 states. It is expected to become the most prevalent form of coronavirus in the United States by the end of March.
Researchers are examining the genetic material of the virus to see how it can be altered. They examine the genetic sequence of the virus taken from small amounts of infected people to chart the emergence of new versions.
Caltech researchers discovered an increase of B.1.526 by scanning for changes in hundreds of thousands of viral genetic sequences in a database called GISAID. “There was a pattern that reappeared, and a group of solitary confinement in the New York region that I didn’t see,” said Anthony West, a calculating biologist at Latex.
He and his colleagues found two versions of the coronavirus increasing in frequency: one with the E484K mutation seen in South Africa and Brazil, which is thought to be partially dosing the virus; And the second is with a mutation called S477N, which can affect how the virus binds to human cells.
By mid-February, the two together accounted for about 27 percent of New York City’s viral sequences submitted to the database, D West West said. (For the moment, both are grouped as B.1.526.)
Columbia University researchers took a different approach. They created 1,142 samples of patients at their medical center, respectively. They found that 12 percent of people infected with the coronavirus were variants with the mutation E484K.
Patients infected with the mutation virus were six years older than average and more and more were hospitalized. Most of the patients were found in the immediate vicinity of the hospital – particularly Washington Washington Heights and Inwood – and many other cases were spread across the metropolitan area, said Dr. David, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. Said David Hoe.
“We see cases in Westchester, in the Bronx and Queens, in lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn,” Ho Ho said. “So it seems broad. Not a single one of them erupted. ”
The team also identified six cases of a submerged variant in Britain, two infections with a variant known in Brazil and one case of a variant in South Africa. The previous two were not reported in New York City, said Dr. Yes.
University investigators have alerted officials in New York State and the city as well as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Drs. Yes. He and his colleagues plan to create a sequence of up to 100 viral genetic samples a day to keep an eye on the growing variety.
Other experts said the sudden appearance of coronavirus variants is worrisome.
Christian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San. Diego, who was not involved in the new research effort.
The E484K mutation has matured independently in many different parts of the world, an indication that it offers significant benefits to the virus.
“Beneficial variables are growing very fast in frequency, especially when the numbers are all coming up,” said Rev. Andrew Reid, an evolutionary microbiologist at Penn State University.
Dr. The Honey team reported in January that monoclonal antibodies made by Ally Lilly, and a monoclonal antibody in a cocktail made by Regeneron, were powerless against a known variant in South Africa.
And some studies have now shown that E484K mutated species are less susceptible to the vaccine than the original form of the virus. This change interferes with the activity of the class of antibodies that almost everyone does, said Dr. Newsenzweig.
“There is no doubt that people who have recovered from the coronavirus or who have been vaccinated can wage this kind of fight.” But “they might get a little sick of it.”
They can also infect others and spread the virus, delaying herd immunity, he added.
But other experts were a little more optimistic. “These things are handled by a little less vaccine, but it’s not an order of magnitude that would scare me,” Read.
Because the virus continues to evolve, vaccines will need to be tweaked, “but in planning things, it’s not a huge concern compared to not having a vaccine,” Dr. Read said. “I’d say the glass is three-quarters full, compared to what we had last year.”
