A long-term sick patient may be behind the new mutation

A single person may have caused the outbreak in the UK.

Of: Sara milstead

Published: December 22, 2020 at 12:08 a.m.

The new virus mutation may have occurred in a long-term ill patient, writes the European authority ECDC in a report.

Now the British authorities are desperately looking for patient zero.

After the outbreak with the much more contagious variant of the crown, British experts are trying to get to the bottom of how the mutation came about.

It is important to understand the origin in order to assess the consequences for, for example, vaccine development.

What is known is that the first known case was discovered in Kent on September 20, during a period when England had a relatively low spread of the infection – around 3,700 cases daily.

Since then, the virus has spread like wildfire in the southeast of the country.

The European Agency for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has identified in a recent report three possible sources of infection.

The first scenario, and the most likely one, is that the infection occurred in a long-term ill person who has not really recovered. For example, it could be a patient with an underlying cancer. There, the virus has continued to multiply and change over time. This single person may then have led to the large outbreak observed in Britain.

– Sometimes it can happen when a patient with a weakened immune system cannot fight the virus, says Pasi Penttinen, ECDC expert on coronavirus.

Photo: Hannah McKay / TT

Archive photograph of a Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital in Blackburn, England.

Another theory is that the mutation is spread through close contact with animals, such as the mink. However, British epidemiologists have seen no indication that this has happened.

There is also a risk that the virus strain originated in another country that had a low level of infection. Since then, the new virus has spread to the UK. However, such development is considered unlikely to be delayed given the emergence of the virus, the authority writes in the report.

Virus mutations happen all the time. Most do not lead to significant changes. But this time it’s different: the new type of crown is significantly more contagious than the old one.

The ECDC cautioned that infectivity may be 70 percent higher with the new variant of the virus. According to British data, the mutation can also increase the R number by 0.4, something that in the long term would mean a surprising increase in the number of people infected in Europe if vaccines or other behavioral changes do not hamper the progress of the epidemic.

– Today the reproduction rate in Sweden is probably around 1, because we have now ended up on a plateau in the spread of infection. If this took hold and took over, which would take a few months, the R number would end up between 1.4 and 1.7. That would mean doubling the number of cases every week, says mathematician Tom Britton.

However, he notes that this is unlikely to happen in the near future and that vaccines may slow development.

– We can really hope they work, he says.

ECDC does not see any cause for concern regarding the effect of the now approved vaccines.

– There is nothing so far to indicate that the covid-19 vaccine that is being implemented now will not work or will have less effect against the new variant of the coronavirus, says ECDC expert Pasi Penttinen.

– There is also no evidence yet that we will see an increased risk of reinfections. However, more research is needed and it is important that authorities invest resources and follow up on recurrence cases.

How widespread is this mutation? Does it make sense to limit travel, for example?

– We believe that the new variant exists so far in some countries or locally. Therefore, there is time to prevent further spread by avoiding unnecessary travel and increasing the number of tests, increasing infection tracking and isolating confirmed cases, says Pasi Penttinen.

However, he notes that several high-level EU meetings were held on Monday to try to coordinate efforts between member states.

– We follow the development very closely, he says.

Published: December 22, 2020 at 12:08 a.m.