Herd immunity was one of the magic words in the corona pandemic.
But we may have to say goodbye to it.
Researchers want to discover what role the mutation P.1 plays in this.
Munich - First there was
Sars-CoV-2
.
The scientific name for the
novel coronavirus
that has kept the world in suspense for around a year.
And does what viruses do.
It continues to develop, mutates.
That is why new
nightmares kept appearing
in the past few days and weeks:
B.1.1.7 in Great Britain
or
501Y.V2 in South Africa
.
And now also
P.1 in Brazil
.
The latest Corona variant was discovered in one of the countries that have particularly
high victims of the pandemic
.
In the wake of a disturbing phenomenon.
Because in
Manaus
, the capital of the state of Amazonas,
three quarters of the population were infected with the corona virus
last year
.
The hope of
herd immunity
was then great.
Corona mutation in Brazil: Antibodies after infection do not offer sufficient protection
But then the
hospital beds
quickly
filled
with infected people again.
Which leads to the conclusion that the
antibodies
developed
do not offer any real protection either.
What could that be?
Nuno Faria, virologist at Imperial College London and professor at Oxford University, and his team discovered this mutation by examining
samples from infected people
.
In 13 of 31 cases the
new virus variant P.1.
can be proven, as
reported by the
science
magazine
Science
.
Video: Clinics in Brazil run out of oxygen for corona patients
Corona mutation in Brazil: will vaccines have to be modified soon?
Now there is great fear that people who have already recovered could become
infected again
.
Ultimately, the
vaccines that
have only just come onto the market may have to be
modified
.
But before the whole world can switch to panic mode, the experts refer to the current
state of science
.
So it is by no means certain that P.1 must be the
trigger for the new wave of infections in Manaus
.
The epidemiologist Oliver Prybus, for example, speculates, according to
Science
, that the
population's immunity
may have
decreased
, which is why the virus had an easy time again in the city of two million people.
Corona mutation in Brazil: higher degree of infection or immunity to antibodies?
It is also questionable whether the new virus variant is spreading because it is more
contagious
or because its
antibodies cannot affect
it.
“Of course it can also be a
combination of these two factors
,” emphasizes Prybus.
In the regions affected by mutations, research is being promoted accordingly.
The
WHO
recently asked for
corona genomes to be sequenced
and divided, so that the
mutations could
be traced more precisely
.
The member states were called upon to “support
global research
efforts to
better understand
important
properties of the mutations and variants
”.
Corona mutation in Brazil: Most variants are far less dangerous than B.1.1.7 or P.1
In the future, however, the difficulty could arise that the various
mutations interact
.
And nobody really knows how many there are now.
Probably countless.
Most of them
are likely to be
far less worrying
than B.1.1.7 or - presumably - P.1.
The variants from Great Britain, South Africa and Manaus, for example, are linked by the
mutation N501Y
, also called
Nelly
by researchers
.
However, previous findings suggest that
Nelly does not
operate
alone
, as she also occurs in variants that do not spread faster.
"Nelly may be harmless, unless she's hanging out with her
bad friends
," says Kristian Andersen from the Scripps Research Institute in the USA in a somewhat flippant way.
+
The corona virus is back - this time also as mutation P.1: In Manaus, the death toll is rising again.
© MICHAEL DANTAS / afp
Corona mutation in Brazil: "Virus is developing into a vaccine-resistant phenotype"
This clique of mutations doesn't seem to be able to resist the vaccines yet.
According to
Science
,
vaccination doctor Philip Krause got this impression
.
He heads a
WHO working group on corona vaccines
and raises a warning finger with a view to the near future: "The not-so-good news is that the
rapid training of these variants
indicates that the virus is
developing
into a
vaccine-resistant phenotype
sooner than hoped
can develop. "
If this happens,
updates for the vaccines will be
inevitable.
According to Krause, this can be implemented quickly, although
renewed checks with regard to safety and efficiency
would be necessary
before approval
.
The expert even suggests
multivalent vaccines
that help against several virus lineages.
Corona mutation in Brazil: Expert does not consider vaccine updates to be necessary yet
At the same time, Krause calmed down and said that it was a matter of “profound considerations.
The public shouldn't think that this is imminent and that
new vaccines are needed
. ”Other researchers see it differently.
Ravindra Gupta from the University of Cambridge suggests that vaccines should be produced now that will provide
immunity against the mutations
.
However, Mike Ryan believes that it is too easy to fully focus on researching the new virus variants and their weak points.
The
executive director of the WHO emergency program
suspects another main driver for virus resurgence: human behavior.
“It's too easy to
blame the mutations
and say the virus did all of that.
Unfortunately, it's also about what
we haven't done
, ”he calls for more personal responsibility in the crisis.
An appeal that we have heard many times.
But apparently not often enough.
(mg)