A version of the coronavirus known as D614G has hit headlines in recent days, after a Malaysian official said it was linked to two outbreaks and claimed it could affect vaccine development. This was followed by a disease expert claiming that D614G may be more infected, but less deadly, potentially explaining fall COVID-19 fatal rates around the world.
Paul Tambyah, told Senior Consultant at the National University of Singapore and President-elect of the International Society of Infectious Diseases Reuters on Tuesday evidence suggests that the proliferation of D614G in some parts of the world has been accompanied by a drop in death rates. This indicates that it may be less deadly than other forms of the virus, he said.
“Maybe it’s good to have a virus that is more infectious but less deadly,” he said Tambyah.
He made the comment after the Malaysian director general of health said the mutation was linked to two outbreaks, Reuters reported. Noor Hisham Abdullah claimed that D614G was ten times more contagious than other mutations, and vaccines under development may not be able to address it.
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Over the past few days, Google’s search for D614G in the US has spiked amid reports suggesting a “new strain” of the US coronavirus who came up.
But experts said D614G is not a new strain but a mutation, and is rather linked to outbreaks in Europe and the US. It is also unlikely to affect vaccine development, and drops in deaths cannot be attributed to just one factor.
What is the D614G Mutation?
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Mutations may sound alarming, but they are a normal part of the life cycle of viruses. The germs are made up of genetic material, called RNA, which is converted into protein. When a virus infects a host, it makes new copies of its genetic data so that it can replicate. This process leads to small changes in the genetic information of the virus, called mutations.
According to Oscar MacLean, a bioinformatics scientist at the Center for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow, there have been more than 20,000 mutations in the virus. coronavirus in the pandemic so far. D614G is the best known example, “he said Newsweek.
The D614G mutation affects one amino acid on the spike protein that the virus uses to invade our cells. He said it “almost always coexists” with another mutation that affects how the virus replicates its genetic material.
D614G “has been the dominant form of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe and the US for some time,” he said.
Echoing MacLean, Dr Julian Tang, honorary professor of respiratory sciences at the University of Leicester, said in a statement “it is probably now the predominant SARS-CoV-2 genotype in most parts of the world now.”
MacLean told earlier Newsweek caution should be taken before a mutation calls a new “strain”.
“By defining unique mutations, we would have thousands of ‘strains’ of SARS-CoV-2 [the coronavirus], however, it is expected that these viruses are all functionally very similar, and so it is somewhat pointless to use this definition, “he said.
Is D614G more contagious?
Ian Jones, professor of virology at the UK’s University of Reading, told Newsweek: “That D614G continues to spread confirms that it has a Darwinian advantage in the virus world, which is consistent with the biochemical data showing that it seems to be a bit more efficient [at] infecting cells in the lab. And in general, viruses become more infected and less pathogenic over time. “
At this point in the pandemic, it seems “very likely” that the combination of two mutations he described earlier will increase the ability to spread, MacLean said, adding: “however, there is uncertainty about how large this effect is. is. “
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Is D614G less deadly?
MacLean described the link between D614G and lower death rates as “weak” and said rigorous analyzes had found no effect on mortality rates.
The combination of the amount of data coming out of the pandemic and the ‘constantly shifting situation’ of the pandemic make it easy to compare things and find correlations “just by chance”, he said.
Jones said it was “too early” to conclude from anecdotal reports that the virus was weakening in patients.
“Knowledge of how to treat patients also increases with time, so there can be many reasons why the death toll counts, including that treatments improve,” he said.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the Norwich School of Medicine, University of East Anglia, said in a statement that although it is “certainly plausible” that D614G would become more infected and less lethal, “it is not clear what real evidence is behind it. is this statement or is it just a suggestion. “
More research is needed to prove that the declining death toll is due to the new strain and not due to other factors, he said. These include more young people catching the virus than were in March, April and May; that doctors are getting better treat the virus; and because tests are extended so that people who are less ill are included in the figures used to calculate the death toll, causing it to go down.
Another factor that may be at stake is that some of the most vulnerable have died, leaving a “more robust human population” with a lower risk of dying.
It is not possible to say that the mutation causes a less serious illness without completing a comparative analysis with the parent’s strain, he said.
Will it affect vaccine development?
Tambyah and Sebastian Maurer–Stroh of the Singapore Office of Science, Technology and Research told Reuters it was unlikely the mutation would affect efforts to produce a vaccine, as the changes in D614G are not in areas typically affecting the immune system recognized.
Likemin MacLean said: “the impact of D614G on current faxes being developed is negative.”
Tang said, “vaccines based on the previous form of the virus should still be effective – although further mutations may well occur by the time these vaccines are licensed for general use.”
Looking forward, MacLean said: “it will be important to continue to check for mutations that may lead to immune evasion in the coming years, but there is no evidence that in all mutations observed up to comfortable frequencies so far and not for D614G in particular . “
