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A variant of the coronavirus that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly across much of Europe since the summer and now accounts for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries and 60 percent in Ireland.
An international team of scientists who have been tracking the virus through its genetic mutations have described the extraordinary spread of the variant, called 20A.EU1, in a research paper to be published on Thursday.
Their work suggests that people returning from vacations in Spain played a key role in spreading the virus across Europe, raising questions about whether the second wave sweeping the continent could have been reduced by better detection at airports. and other transportation hubs.
Because each variant has its own genetic signature, it can be traced back to where it originated.
“Since the broadcast of 20A.EU1, it seems clear that the [virus prevention] the measures put in place were often not enough to stop the transmission of variants introduced this summer, ”said Emma Hodcroft, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Basel and lead author of the study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Scientific teams from Switzerland and Spain are now rushing to examine the behavior of the variant to establish whether it may be more deadly or more infectious than other strains.
Dr. Hodcroft emphasized that “there was no evidence that the variant [rapid] the spread is due to a mutation that increases transmission or affects the clinical outcome ”.
But he emphasized that 20A.EU1 did not resemble any version of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, that he had previously encountered. “I have not seen any variant with this type of dynamics since I have been looking at the genomic sequences of the coronavirus in Europe,” he said.
In particular, the teams are working with virology labs to establish whether 20A.EU1 carries a particular mutation, in the “spike protein” that the virus uses to enter human cells, that could alter its behavior.
New variant
All viruses develop mutations (changes in the individual letters of their genetic code) that can be grouped into new variants and strains. Another mutation has been identified in Sars-Cov-2, called D614G, which is believed to make the virus more infectious.
Joseph Fauver, a Yale University genetic epidemiologist who was not involved in the research published Thursday, said: “We need more studies like this to find mutations that have risen to a high frequency in the population, and then reverse engineer to see if they make the virus more transmissible. “
The new variant, which has six distinctive genetic mutations, emerged among agricultural workers in northeastern Spain in June and moved rapidly among the local population, according to the study.
Tanja Stadler, a professor of computational evolution at ETH Zurich who is part of the project, said analysis of virus samples taken from across Europe in recent weeks showed that they were derived from this same variant.
“We can see that the virus has been introduced several times in various countries and many of these introductions have spread through the population,” said Professor Stadler.
Iñaki Comas, director of the SeqCovid-Spain consortium that is studying the virus and co-author of the study, added: “A variant, with the help of an initial super-spread event, can quickly become prevalent.”
The researchers concluded that the “risk behavior” of tourists in Spain, such as ignoring social distancing guidelines, who “continue to have this behavior at home” helped the spread of the new variant.
The research showed that the new variant accounted for more than eight in 10 cases in the UK, 80 per cent of cases in Spain, 60 per cent in Ireland and up to 40 per cent in Switzerland and France.
Tight lockdowns in the early part of the year helped control the initial spike in Covid-19, with new cases substantially reduced over the summer.
But the virus has spread rapidly across Europe in recent weeks in a resurgence that has forced national leaders to introduce painful new restrictions on social activities. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2020
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