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The emergence in the UK of a new strain of the coronavirus, Much more contagious than the others, it worries epidemiologists and led several countries to suspend their flights from British territory this Sunday.
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A NEW STRAIN
British government scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said on Saturday that this new variant of SARS-CoV-2, in addition to spreading rapidly, it was becoming the “dominant” form, leading to “a very strong rise” in hospital admissions in December.
The new strain would have appeared in mid-September in London or Kent (south-east), according to him.
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“The Advisory Group on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats (NERVTAG) believes that this new strain may spread more rapidly,” England’s chief physician Chris Whitty stated in a statement.
This idea is based on the finding of “a very strong increase in contagion cases and hospitalizations in London and the south-east, compared to the rest of England, in recent days”says Professor of Medicine Paul Hunter, University of East-Anglia, quoted on the Science Media Center website.
“This increase appears to be caused by the new strain”, He added, referring to the information provided by the health authorities. However, “there is currently no indication that this new strain causes a higher mortality rate or affects vaccines and treatments, but work is being done urgently to confirm that,” adds Chris Whitty.
CONCERNED EPIDEMIOLOGISTS
The information “about this new strain is very worrying,” said Professor Peter Openshaw, an immunologist at Imperial College London, quoted by the Science Media Center. Above all, because “it seems to be between 40% and 70% more transmissible”.
“This is very bad news,” said Professor John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “It appears that this virus is much more infectious than the preceding strain.”
On his Facebook page, French geneticist Axel Kahn recalled that, so far, “300,000 SARS-CoV-2 mutants have been sequenced in the world.”
The new strain incorporates a mutation, called “N5017,” in the coronavirus “spike” protein, which allows it to latch onto human cells to penetrate them.
According to Dr. Julian Tang of the University of Leicester, “This N501Y mutation was already circulating long before, sporadically, this year outside the UK, in Australia in June-July, in the US in July and in Brazil in April.”
“Coronaviruses mutate all the time, so it is not surprising that new variants of SARS-CoV-2 are emerging,” recalled Professor Julian Hiscox, from the University of Liverpool.
“The most important thing is to try to know if this variant has properties that have an impact on human health, diagnostics and vaccines.” “The more viruses there are, and therefore more people affected, the more random mutations there will be” that are “advantageous for the virus,” added Axel Kahn.
SUSPENSION OF FLIGHTS
Confirmation of the level of transmissibility of this strain led the British authorities to decree a new confinement in London and part of England, affecting a total of 16 million inhabitants.
“Unfortunately, the new strain was out of control. We had to regain control, it is the only way to do it, restrict social contacts”, British Health Minister Matt Hancock declared this Sunday.
After the Netherlands, which suspended all its passenger flights from the The United Kingdom, Belgium will also suspend air and rail connections with that country and Germany is “seriously” studying a similar measure, which would also affect South Africa.
AFP
