Pablo Sigal
02/04/2021 12:01
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 02/04/2021 12:02
The new variants of Covid are, at this point in the coronavirus pandemic, the great
threat
that has scientists on edge.
The worst case scenario would be that vaccines already in use and those in development could be weakened by the new strains.
Argentina decided to buy a state-of-the-art equipment that monitors these eventual mutations minute by minute.
The
CovidSeq
is a 600 kilo machine and the size of an ATM.
It was purchased by the government from Illumina, a US company based in San Diego,
for $ 992,600
.
There are few of these teams in the world.
The United States and Great Britain have theirs.
The Argentine specimen is the first in South America.
It is already installed in the Biological Containment Unit of
the Anlis-Malbrán Institute
.
It is a place prepared so that the power never goes out and the temperature remains constant.
There they train scientists who soon (the date was still announced) would begin to use the
genomic sequencer.
The CovidSeq will be able to process about
6,000 samples per week
.
The equipment that Malbrán had until now could only process
300 in that same period
.
In other words, with the CovidSeq surveillance will increase
20 times
, to try to determine whether new mutations or any of those already existing in the world appear in the coronavirus tests carried out in the country.
So far
only two patients with variants of Covid have appeared in Argentina
.
One was the UK variant and the other was the Rio de Janeiro variant.
Both people
could be isolated in time
and since January 16, when the British mutation was detected here, no positive cases with variants have been registered in the country again.
Experts from the Anlis-Malbrán Institute unpack the latest generation equipment.
Claudia Perandones, scientific director of Anlis-Malbrán, explained to
Clarín
that "in addition to sequencing the Covid genome, the CovidSeq can diagnose it."
That is, it determines if the sample is positive and also the variant to which it belongs.
In this diagnosis, the sensitivity is
99.7 percent
, higher than the
98 percent
that the standard system has.
That means it almost minimizes the chance of
false negatives
occurring
.
The difference is that it evaluates 98 regions of the virus (instead of the three that the traditional method analyzes) to give the result.
“Several of the vaccines are based on adenovirus vector strategies.
For this reason, it is essential to carry out genomic sequencing of all adenoviruses that circulate both nationally and regionally, to
guarantee the effectiveness of the vaccines
, ”Perandones explained.
The expert added that "monitoring these
variations through
genomic
surveillance
of the circulating viral population in the country, especially after the vaccine is applied, is essential to ensure correct coverage of circulating lineages based on the chosen strategy" .
In addition to monitoring the effectiveness of vaccines based on the mutations that appear, detecting new strains is also key “to determine, for example, if a growth in infections may be the cause of a relaxation of society's prevention measures or the appearance of a variant that has
greater transmissibility
”, explains Perandones.
The CovidSeq is the size of an ATM and weighs about 600 kilos.
Covid variants are a "constellation of mutations" or changes in the genome of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
A variant may have
one or more mutations,
and the greater the number of mutations, the more complex the variant tends to be.
So far in the world there are
four confirmed variations and one under study:
1- UK variant: it
is 70 percent more contagious, although the pictures it presents are not more serious.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson slipped that it would be more deadly, but scientifically it was proven that this is not the case.
There are a higher number of deaths, naturally, because there are more infections.
Available vaccines did not demonstrate a lower power over this strain.
2- South African variant:
with higher prevalence among young people without underlying health conditions and, compared to other variants, it more frequently leads to severe disease in cases of comorbidities.
Preliminary studies showed that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may be
slightly reduced
in action against this variant.
3- Rio de Janeiro bypass:
began to circulate in July, was detected in October and the findings were reported in December.
From that moment on, it increased significantly in frequency, although it is still largely limited to Rio de Janeiro.
It reduces the response of antibodies
, but even so they are still efficient in neutralizing the virus.
4- Brazilian variant: it
was detected in Tokyo on January 6, 2021 by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and was found in four people who arrived in the Japanese capital after traveling from the state of Amazonas on January 2, 2021. The Foundation Oswaldo Cruz confirmed the assumption that the variant was circulating in the Amazon rainforest.
5- Variant of Mexico:
after scientists from the University of Guadalajara detected a possible Mexican variation, the general director of the National Center for Preventive Programs and Disease Control, Ruy López Ridaura, announced that they are already investigating whether it is indeed a new strain of the infectious agent.
But there are still no confirmations in this regard.
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