There is a new Corona variant with one very worrying feature - Walla! health

2021-11-25T10:05:09.554Z

10 cases of a new variant have been identified worldwide - most of them in Africa. But the fact that this virus has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein alone causes great vigilance and concern in the community.

There is a new Corona variant with one very worrying feature

10 cases of a new variant have been identified worldwide - most of them in Africa.

But the fact that this virus has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein alone causes great vigilance and concern in the scientific community.

Walla!

health

25/11/2021

Thursday, 25 November 2021, 10:45 Updated: 11:56

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In video: Germany speeds up corona vaccine rate due to rising morbidity (Photo: Reuters)

Scientists have announced that a new variant of the corona virus has been identified that carries the "highest number" of mutations on its back.

The concern is that the fact that this variant has so many mutations will make it easier for it to become immune from the defenses that currently exist against infection and disease.

So far only 10 cases of the new strain have been identified and genetically engineered, but this variant is already a source of serious concern for researchers, as they say some of its mutations have the potential to turn it into an evasive version that will overcome the body's immune defenses.

The official name of the variant is B.1.1.529 and it has 32 mutations in the spike protein alone, which is the component in the virus to which most corona vaccines approved for use today are adapted.

Changes in the spike protein may affect the virus' ability to infect cells in the body and spread in it, and in addition, they make the body's immune mission - to identify and fight the pathogen, more difficult.

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The new variant was first identified in Botswana, Africa, and so far 3 cases of people infected with the strain have been confirmed there.

Six more cases have been identified in South Africa and one more case in Hong Kong of a man returning from a visit to South Africa.

"Serious source of concern"

Dr Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, posted details of the new variant on the Genome Information Sharing website and wrote that "the large number of mutations in the spike protein indicates that this variant may be a serious source of concern." He wrote that this variant "really really needs to be monitored, due to its appalling spike protein profile. He added that the accumulated morbidity cases identified may also be coincidental and expressed hope that this would indeed be the case and that the variant would turn out to be not particularly contagious.

Dr Mira Chand, director of covid-19 incidents at the UK Health Security Agency, said they were working closely with health bodies around the world to monitor all variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that are emerging and evolving around the world. Random mutations often occur, it is not uncommon to see a small number of cases in which multiple and new mutations are detected.

"Any variant that shows the potential to be particularly contagious quickly undergoes professional evaluation."

To date, 6 cases have been identified in South Africa, and the morbidity is on the rise.

Corona Department Hospital in Kampton Park, South Africa (Photo: Reuters)

The first cases of the new variant were detected in Botswana on 11 November, but the earlier cases were actually those from South Africa, although they were only detected a few days later.

The case identified in Hong Kong was that of a 36-year-old man whose PCR test before flying from Hong Kong was negative.

He has been in South Africa since October 22 and was found negative when he returned to Hong Kong on November 11.

However, another test conducted two days later while he was still in solitary confinement found that he was positive for Corona and later underwent genetic sequencing which confirmed that it was variant B.1.1.529.

Africa is already very worried

Scientists are now closely monitoring the new variant and looking for signs that it is gaining momentum or spreading more widely.

Virologists in South Africa are already very concerned, especially in light of the recent rise in morbidity in the urban area of Johannesburg and Pretoria - the same area where cases of the new variant have been identified.

Professor Ravi Gupta, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, said that in his laboratory it was found that at least two of the mutations in the new variant increase the potential for infection of the virus and make it more difficult to detect by antibodies of the immune system.

"This strain certainly seems like a significant cause for concern, based on the mutations that exist in it today," he said.

"However, it is not yet clear whether this variant is contagious like the Delta strain - the ability to evade immune protection is only a small part of the picture," Sage Gupta said.