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LONDON – UK Health Minister Matt Hancock announced to the British Parliament on Monday that a new strain of the new coronavirus has been identified in the country. The discovery comes amid the Covid-19 vaccination, which began last week. According to Hancock, the World Health Organization (WHO) has already been notified. The Sars-CoV-2 variant could be related to the discharge of cases in the south-east of England and would multiply more rapidly than the other strains of the pathogen.
Vaccines against Covid-19: know everything about side effects, effectiveness and vaccination plan
Still, according to the British minister, more than a thousand cases have already been recorded in the UK in more than 60 different locations. Hancock described the numbers as “growing rapidly.” He also considered that there are still no elements that indicate that the new strain is more likely to aggravate the Covid-19 situation than the others.
“We have identified a new variant of the coronavirus that may be associated with the accelerated spread (Covid-19) in the south-east of England,” Hancock said in a meeting with parliamentarians. – Initial analysis suggests that this variant multiplies faster than existing variants.
Each variant of the virus has its own genetic “signature”, so it can be traced back to the place of origin. The minister also said that the Porton Down laboratory, linked to the British Defense Ministry, will carry out tests to assess whether the new strain is resistant to vaccines. Hancock reasoned, however, that the portfolio’s medical advisers believe this possibility is “highly unlikely.”
On the same occasion, Hancock confirmed that the British government will place the capital, London, under the strictest level of restrictions due to the increase in Covid-19 cases. Other cities in the city will also enter a blockade regime. In accordance with procedures established by the government, restaurants, cafes and pubs will be closed and companies will be required to adopt remote work for all non-essential services.
– We do not know to what extent this (the increase in cases in regions of England) is due to the new variant, but regardless of the cause, we must take decisive and swift action which, unfortunately, are absolutely essential to control this deadly disease while we carry out the vaccination – said the minister.
The United Kingdom is the country most affected by Covid-19 in Western Europe along with Italy and already has more than 1.8 million cases of the disease. More than 64,000 people died from the new coronavirus on British soil. The British government became on the 8th the first Western country to initiate vaccination against Covid-19 under canonical scientific procedures.
Spanish variant
An international team of scientists published a study in late October that identified a variant of the new coronavirus that would have appeared among workers in northeastern Spain in June. The strain has spread rapidly across much of Europe since the Northern Hemisphere summer, and at the time, it was deemed responsible for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries on the continent.
The variant was identified as 20A.EU1, which accounts for around 90% of new infections in Spain between August and October and caused between 40% and 70% of new cases in Switzerland, Ireland and the United Kingdom in September. Its prevalence has also been observed in Norway, Latvia, the Netherlands, and France.
In general, experts consider that viral mutations are common, especially in RNA viruses with those of the coronavirus family. However, variant monitoring is necessary to identify the pattern of these changes and understand whether they will change the behavior of the pathogen.
A mutation in protein S (also called spike), used by the virus to invade human cells and reproduce, could alter the replication capacity of Sars-CoV-2. This is the case with another mutation, identified as D614G. A reported change in Europe led Denmark to cull more than 10 million minks, small mammals that look like weasels raised for the textile industry.
