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In his report to the Storting, Health Minister Bent Høie says that the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) has analyzed several samples related to bus travel in southern Norway that can be linked to around 100 cases of illness. coronary.
– The virus belongs to a genetic subgroup and has unique mutations that we have not seen before in Norway. One of these mutations could possibly increase the virus’s ability to infect cells and thus make the virus somewhat more contagious, Høie says.
Follow-up closely
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has examined the genetic material of the coronavirus from several of the cases and detected a variant of the virus that has a change in the largest surface protein, the spike protein. This is the first time we have seen a virus with this mutation in Norway.
– We do not have information that indicates that this virus causes more serious diseases. Viruses with this mutation can affect infectivity and therefore it is important to follow evolution. New research is likely to provide more clarity on whether we had this virus present before the bus travel-related outbreak and whether we will see further spread in Norway with this variant, says Karoline Bragstad, section leader of the National Institute of Public Health.
There have been large outbreaks of viruses with the same mutation in Australia. Similar viruses have also been detected in the UK and some other European countries.
Alarms about the progressive health crisis
Big eruption
The much talked about bus trip was a group of Rogaland retirees, aged 67-84, who visited six accommodation establishments in Norway in East Norway, West Norway and Dovre in September.
A total of 40 people participated in the trip, including drivers and tour guides.
Monitoring the infection has revealed that passengers on their journey have likely led to local outbreaks in Lillehammer, Røros, Dombås, Førde and Norheimsund. A new infection from these outbreaks has occurred in Askvoll, Molde and Kristiansund.
Almost all of the passengers were infected during the seven days they traveled together. Tracking of infections during bus travel has been carried out in 25 municipalities and has so far resulted in around a hundred cases. Five of those involved have been hospitalized so far.
The corona vaccine will be free
– Mutates all the time
Deputy Health Director Espen Nakstad of the Norwegian Health Directorate explains to Dagbladet that the coronavirus mutates “all the time.”
– Slightly different variants are spread across different continents and countries, but so far no mutations have been detected that are believed to affect the infectivity of the virus or disease-causing properties to any significant degree, he says.
When mutations appear that are unusual in Norway, and which are believed to affect the proteins on the surface of the virus, it is important to map whether the mutation actually changes the properties of the virus and whether it may have an effect on infectivity, morbidity, immune response or vaccine development, Nakstad explains.
– Therefore, professional communities around the world follow this closely, and in Norway, FHI performs genetic sequencing and other virus analysis to map the changes.
Similar findings
In late September, a collection of American researchers published what, according to the Washington Post, may be the largest coronavirus gene aggregation study ever conducted in the United States.
The study has not yet been peer-reviewed and is therefore only published on the medical research website MedRxiv, which publishes studies pending peer review.
The study has investigated coronavirus mutations through laboratory analysis of 5,000 corona cases in Houston, Texas, both since the start of the pandemic and since the latest wave that has spread in recent times.
This study also suggests that one of the mutations the researchers found may have made the virus more contagious.
The study also did not find that the virus has changed in terms of mortality.
– In recent months, laboratory tests (sequencing) have mapped many minor changes in the virus and in this way have been able to track in which direction the spread is taking. For example, it is well documented that European variants of the virus have spread to other continents, Nakstad told Dagbladet at the time, continuing:
– But until now no one has been able to document the changes that lead to increased infectivity. So it will be interesting to see what new genetic virus studies, like the one from Houston in the US, are targeting when they are published after peer review.
