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Before the information of a new variant of coronavirus circulating in the UK, the Institute of Public Health of Chile (ISP) affirms the strain has not been detected in the country.
As detailed in a statement, there is only a report of some cases in Denmark, Italy and Australia, so it is not has detected in the American continent the lineage B.1.1.7, according to the latest data provided by the health authority.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, Institute scientists have sequenced the entire genome of isolated Chilean viral strains to find out their genotypic characteristics in order to carry out clinical and epidemiological surveillance of viral variants,” they detailed.
Jorge Fernández, head of the Molecular Genetics subdepartment of the ISP, pointed out “Being a virus whose genome is RNA, the appearance of mutations is expected, as we have observed with the different variants that are circulating in the world. A close example is what was detected in the Magallanes region. The effect of the mutations of the Spike, N501Y, and the deletions 69-70, detected in the lineage B.1.1.7, are being investigated by different laboratories to determine the potential impact in the propagation and the diagnosis ”.
The Institute of Public Health has carried out the analysis of the complete genome of 510 Chilean cases of SARS-CoV-2, where it is observed that the GR variant is the one that is circulating predominantly.
It is important to mention that the virus variants are GR, GH, G and that each of these variants have different lineages. The main lineages associated with the GR variant that have circulated in Chile are B.1.1, B.1.1.33, B.1.1.1, B.1.1.35. However, in the months of September and October the lineage B.1.1.33 has been predominant.
Vaccine
For his part, the director (s) of the ISP, Heriberto García, stressed that there is not enough scientific evidence that today calls into question the efficacy of vaccines “it is important that the population is not alarmed, this is a new virus and that, of course, it is expected that it will mutate, which is not a risk ”.
In the same vein, he assured that the coordination that will be carried out between the ISP and the Ministry of Sciences “is essential to unify the data of the sequencing that the laboratories of the country’s universities have carried out.”
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