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Health professionals test COVID-19 with swab on a woman in Seoul, South Korea – AFP
The appearance in the United Kingdom of a new strain of coronavirus, presented as more infectious than the others, has generated strong concern in Europe. However, nothing seems to indicate that this variant causes more severe forms of the disease, or that it is resistant to vaccines, highlight the experts heard by AFP.
– Is it normal for the virus to mutate?
Viruses, like living beings, are endowed with genetic material (DNA or RNA), which can be subject to changes when they replicate (mutations) in the cells in which they spread, or by exchanges between viruses (recombination). In general, this does not usually have consequences, but mutations can also give the virus an advantage, or a disadvantage, for its survival.
“Certainly there are thousands of variants,” says Dr. Emma Hodcroft, an epidemiologist at the University of Bern.
“The most important thing is to try to find out if this variant has properties that have an impact on human health, diagnostics and vaccines,” said Julian Hiscox, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Liverpool, quoted by Science Media Center.
The new strain, which prompted the British government to raise the alarm, carries a mutation called “N501Y” in the spike (spike) coronavirus protein. Through it, the virus attaches itself to human cells to penetrate them.
– Is this variant more contagious?
According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this strain can be up to 70% more contagious, which has led several European countries and the rest of the world to suspend their air and rail connections with the United Kingdom.
“The UK has faced a rapid increase in the number of covid-19 cases in south-east England in recent weeks,” and analyzes show that “most of these cases belonged” to the new mutation of the virus, he said. on Sunday the European Health Center. Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
“The reasons for this increase in infectivity are not yet clear. We have not yet discovered whether this is due to increased viral replication or a better connection with the cells that line the nose and lungs, ”said Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, in the Science Media Center.
Emma Hodcroft, for her part, was cautious with the assertion that the virus may be “70% more infectious”, because when estimates are made too early, they may end up changing. “We don’t know much where this number came from,” he warned.
In addition, in this southeastern part of England, “the immunity of the population group is low and the virus has found ground to develop,” the deputy director of the National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses at the Pasteur Institute in Paris told AFP. Vincent Enouf.
– How did this strain spread?
It’s hard to say that this new strain was born in the UK.
This country “is the world leader in sequencing […]. So if there is a variant and it reaches the UK, there is a good chance it will be detected, ”said Emma Hodcroft. For her, the first sequence of this new variety dates back to September.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), similar forms were detected in several countries, such as Australia (one case), Denmark (9), the Netherlands (1) and South Africa. Italy also announced that it detected a first case on Sunday.
“Despite not being born in the UK, it seems that it was there that it developed, in England,” Emma Hodcroft estimated.
– Will the vaccine be less effective?
So far, scientists believe this new strain is unlikely to be resistant to current covid-19 vaccines.
“The idea of the vaccine is to show the Spike protein as a whole to the immune system, which in this way learns to recognize its many parts,” explained Emma Hodcroft. So “even if some parts change, the other parts remain to recognize” the virus, he said.
For Vincent Enouf, “a repertoire of antibodies should be sufficient.”
“As of yet, there is no indication that this new strain causes an increased mortality rate or affects vaccines and treatments, but work is urgently underway to confirm this,” added England’s chief physician Chris Whitty.
WHO and ECDC came to the same conclusion.
– Will it affect the tests?
“Laboratory managers should check with their suppliers if their tests may fail” for this new variant, said Vincent Enouf.
According to the ECDC, the change in the Spike protein has led to false negatives in some UK testing labs, which rely solely on this protein in their analyzes.
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