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New research suggests that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may have already mutated into more than 30 separate strains.
The study found that different strains can generate very different levels of viral load like others, the South China Morning Post reports, making them much more dangerous.
One strain, for example, seemed to generate 270 times the viral load, which means that the infected person produces 270 times more virus than the less potent strain.
That makes it much more difficult to fight infection and makes it easier to spread, hypothetically explaining why some cases of COVID-19 are significantly worse than others.
“Sars-CoV-2 has acquired mutations capable of substantially changing its pathogenicity,” wrote Li Lanjuan, one of China’s most prolific epidemiologists and a researcher at Zhejiang University, who was shared online on the MedRxiv preprint server on Sunday. , but has not yet been reviewed by the peer review process or published in an academic journal.
In the investigation, Li isolated different strains and, under laboratory conditions, measured how quickly and effectively they could infect and destroy host cells.
The document also traced different strains to outbreaks in different parts of the world, discovering that the version of SARS-CoV-2 that spread throughout Europe and New York were far more efficient killers than the one that hit other parts of the US. USA, like Washington State.
“The development of drugs and vaccines, while urgent, must take into account the impact of these accumulated mutations … to avoid potential pitfalls,” Li and colleagues wrote.
