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This Tuesday, health authorities announced the detection of the first case of the new variant of the coronavirus, the same discovered in the UK a few weeks ago, in a Chilean woman who He arrived in Santiago and then moved to the south of the country.
The contagion was detected after an analysis to PCR examination what was the passenger after presenting symptoms once he arrived in Chile, informed the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Paula Daza.
This new variant, which according to preliminary studies made in the UK would be 40% to 70% more contagious, is suspected of having caused the last large increase in the number of cases in south-east England in recent weeks. However, this data has not been confirmed by any scientific journal and investigations continue to learn more about its characteristics.
First detected in September in the UK, this variant called VOC 202012/01 contains 23 mutations, and It is believed what one of them the one that affects the protein spike of the coronavirus, used by the virus to “latch on” to human cells to penetrate them, facilitating infections.
The preliminary study, conducted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, for now has not found elements that indicate that those infected with this mutation have a greater risk of being hospitalized or dying.
Although the new variant is not more dangerous than the previous ones, the “significant increase” in the number of cases could affect the number of deaths, which according to the study, “It would be higher in 2021 than in 2020.”
He Dr. Alfredo Sagredo Campos, researcher at the Millennium Institute of Biomedical Neuroscience BNI of the Faculty of Medicine University of Chile, explains that “this new variant has 23 mutations in its genome, and of them, 17 could be important. We say ‘could’, because you have to try it. Everything we know so far they are mathematical models, like 40 to 70% more contagiousness ”, he says.
“Today we are working in laboratories to see if these mutations can affect antibodies, or testing them in cells to establish if the protein spike now it has a higher affinity for the ACE2 receptor, etc ”, he adds.
The latest data released this Tuesday in a report from the UK Ministry of Health, indicate that almost there is no difference in the hospitalization rate of the new variant versus the other variants. Of 1769 people, only 16 cases required hospitalization, 0.9% of the total, and in the group with normal variants the figure was 1.5%.
The same happened with fatality rate. With the new variant, mortality was 0.89% compared to 0.73% for the normal variants. There are also no noticeable differences with respect to ages of those affected.
Until today, the new variant had already been detected -in addition to Chile- in Germany, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Denmark, Spain, France, India, Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands. In U.S, the country that has suffered the highest death toll from a pandemic that already accumulates more than 1.78 million deaths in the world, I know on Tuesday detected the first case, in a 20-year-old man.
For Alfredo Sagredo, “the main message is that We must not lower our guard. Viruses mutate, and it is part of the biology of all organisms that have a genome; it is a way of visualizing the evolution. Only here it’s faster. Mutations happen, always”.
“Our genome is copied, and errors are generated that are corrected, but viruses do not have those systems. They just copy. Sometimes it happens that these random mutations, allow viruses to infect more, or even less“, Explain.
The expert maintains that an example of this we see with bacteria and antibiotic resistance, a problem that for the World Health Organization is one of the greatest threats to global health. When they replicate and copy their DNA, they mutate. And when a drug is used on bacteria, those who cannot resist it die, and produce no offspring, while the survivors can pass the gene that makes them resistant to the next generation. For this reason, drug resistance increases from generation to generation.
Sagredo points out that in this case, it is difficult to explain what causes the virus to increase its infectivity, since in that sense, has had no problems.
“There are no human populations that are resistant to the virus. Since November 2019, has never stopped infecting and there are always new cases. There is no effect in our biology for the virus to forcibly mutate ”, he says, insisting that we must wait for the results of the studies in a few weeks to better understand this variant.
However, in addition to knowing their characteristics, it is necessary to detect these mutations in different countries. And not everyone is prepared, including Chile.
To understand this whole process, Sagredo ensures that the key is the genetic sequencing of the virus from the samples of the PCR test -the same that allowed to discover the English variant in Chile-, process that allows to see almost in real time and graphically in time how the variants are being modified.
“UK sequences a huge number of samples. In Chile and in the world, PCR is done, but it only tells us if there is a positive or negative case. Here there are sequences, very few; if we sequence 100 people to one, in the United Kingdom they make 40. It is an important sampling proportion ”.
Therefore, although the new cases of this variant continue as the days go by, Dr. Sagredo points out that it is possible that this mutation of the virus is already present in more countries than is believed, including Chile.
“It is just a hypothesis, but it is very possible that in Chile the virus has arrived much earlier than we think. I was in the UK, in the US too, but here by our system we are blind ”, state.
Sagredo’s hypothesis has antecedents. According to WHO data, in the United Kingdom it was reported that through a viral genomic sequencing this new variant had been identified December 14 past, with more than 1,100 cases. However, a retrospective analysis placed the first variant identified in Kent, in the south-east of England, the 20 of September, which was followed by a rapid proliferation of the same variant later in November.
The same thing happened in Germany, when it was discovered through the same procedure that the UK variant was present in the country since November in a man already deceasedThis despite the fact that so far only one proven case of the new coronavirus mutation had been reported in a woman who arrived by plane from London last Thursday.
“If it turns out that the virus is this contagious, then it is very likely that it is already all over the world. It is also a problem in many countries, because what the United Kingdom sequences in a week is what France has done since the pandemic began. Even in the United States, which is a world power, they are in 43rd place in the world in sequencing, ”says Sagredo.
“Today we do not know the real changes of the mutations. Apparently the virus yes it is more contagious, but we have to verify it. Also very confident that the vaccines are still effective. One generates immunity to different parts of the virus and changing one of them will not affect the others, but you have to be watching. If it changes enough, we will have to update the vaccine, such as influenza”Adds the researcher.
“Meanwhile, we must consider that the virus will not change its properties to make the mask not work, but yes we must maintain the sanitary measures that we already know. And we should make one more effort to speed up vaccination ”, he stresses.
“Perhaps people wonder why scientists are taking so long, but you have to consider that this never happened in history. Today, thanks to experiments, we are seeing how a virus changes in real time; something that had never been done. We have the technology to see how in one part of the world it affects the contagion capacity of the virus. It’s impressive, ”says Sagredo.
“But we can improve. In Chile there is sequencing capability, since there are devices in Santiago, Valdivia or Temuco. Chile can do better but you have to invest in science. Here it is sequenced, there is a consortium for that between several universities. It only requires more funds and to take the weight of Chilean science and its capacities ”.
“Actually, we may not be ‘blind’, but we are one-eyed”, he maintains.
