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Three variants of the coronavirus are currently identified as more contagious than the one that originally started the pandemic. These are varieties that were first discovered in South Africa, Great Britain, and Brazil.
One of South Africa’s leading epidemiologists, Salim Abdool Karim, now claims that there is new evidence that the South African variant binds more easily and more strongly to human cells, making it more contagious. The variant has more than 20 mutations, several of which are in the so-called nail protein that the virus uses to bind to cells, Reuters reports.
However, there is no evidence so far that vaccines that have been or are being developed are not as effective against the variant.
Anders Sönnerborg, a professor of clinical virology at the Karolinska Institutet, says the question of the infectivity of the three variants was raised at one of the World Health Organization and WHO expert meetings until the end of last week.
– It is always difficult to prove that a variant is more contagious. Based on lab tests, the South African variant may be like this, but it’s not known for sure, he says.
According to Sönnerborg, Salim Abdool Karim presented the findings at the WHO meeting. This is because test tube researchers have compared the neutralizing effect of antibodies from patients who have been infected with the “old” virus variants with the effect of these antibodies against the new variant. The researchers found that the neutralizing effect was slightly worse against the latest variant of the virus.
– But I don’t think the differences were impressive, he says.
Like the usual flu viruses the coronavirus also mutates. When researchers discover that a new variant quickly becomes dominant or infects a significantly larger proportion of the population, the question arises whether it may be more contagious. In the case of all three variants, the hypothesis is that the virus’s nail protein binds more strongly to human cells and penetrates them more quickly, where they produce more virus particles, as indicated by laboratory tests.
But even if the variants were more contagious, it is not certain that it has any meaning.
– It’s about how big the difference is, marginal differences don’t matter to humans.
So far, no clinical differences have been demonstrated in humans, but the evidence consists, in addition to laboratory observations, in epidemiological observations, that the variants have become more dominant.
There is nothing indicating that all three variants are more deadly or produce more severe symptoms. However, researchers are vigilant about variants so that mutations do not affect the effectiveness of the vaccine, since it is the protein in the nail that approved vaccines work against.
– Sooner or later, you will probably have to modify the corona vaccine, but it would be unfortunate if it happened now with the vaccine developed during the ongoing pandemic.
The efficacy of the vaccine can also be tested in the laboratory and has been performed with Pfizers, Modernas and Astra Zenecas.
At the same time, Anders Sönnerborg emphasizes that common precautionary measures such as physical distance and hand washing also help against the new variants.
– If you continue following the recommendations, you will avoid getting infected.
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