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The appearance in the United Kingdom of a new strain of the coronavirus, much more contagious than the others, worries epidemiologists and led several countries to suspend their flights from British territory this Sunday.
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, 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.
“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 said in a statement.
This idea is based on the finding of “a very strong increase in cases of contagion and hospitalizations in London and the South East, compared to the rest of England, in recent days”, says Professor of Medicine Paul Hunter, from the University from East-Anglia, quoted on the Science Media Center website.
“This increase seems to be caused by the new strain,” he added, referring to the information provided by the health authorities.
However, “Nothing indicates, at the moment, that this new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, but work is underway 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, from the University of Leicester, “this N501Y mutation was already circulating long before, sporadically, this year outside the United Kingdom, in Australia in June-July, in the United States 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 impact human health, diagnostics and vaccines.”
“The more viruses there are, and therefore more people affected, the more random mutations there are” that are “advantageous to the virus,” added Axel Kahn.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition to “preliminary indications that the variant could be more contagious”, the strain in question “could also affect the effectiveness of some diagnostic methods”, yes, “according to preliminary information “.
However, “there is no evidence of any change in the severity of the disease”, although that question is also being investigated.
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.
The WHO urged its members in Europe to “tighten their controls.” Outside the British territory, nine cases were detected in Denmark, one in the Netherlands and one in Australia, according to the WHO.
For its part, the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC), which includes some thirty countries, including members of the EU and the United Kingdom, did not “rule out” that the variant is already circulating outside of British territory.
After the Netherlands and Belgium, which suspended all passenger flights from the United Kingdom on Sunday, other countries such as Italy, Romania and Germany also announced that they will temporarily cease air connections.
However, this list is not exhaustive, as many European governments are studying the possibility of adopting similar measures.
In addition, Berlin also prepares restrictions on air connections with South Africa, where the same strain of the virus was detected.
Colombia joined the group of countries that banned flights from the United Kingdom in recent hours, and travelers who have arrived from that country must be quarantined.
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