A guide to what you need to know

Viruses are constantly mutating, and it is no surprise to experts that the coronavirus that emerged in China in late 2019 has undergone several important mutations as the virus replicates and spreads.

But a new strain of the virus that has surfaced in South Africa is of concern. Like a variant discovered in the UK in recent months, the one that emerged in South Africa turns out to be much more transferable.

While they can spread more easily so far, scientists don’t believe both new variants are more deadly. But being more transmissible means more people can become infected, and this could lead to more serious infections and more fatalities.

Questions are now being raised as to whether the coronavirus vaccines that have developed at a breakneck pace over the past year, with the western front runners developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca going to be effective against significant mutations of the virus , as identified in South Africa.

While scientists think the UK variant is unlikely to affect the efficacy of the vaccines currently being rolled out in the West, there is more uncertainty about the South African strain.

Experts would like to point out that there is still much we do not know about the new species, although this and the British species are under investigation, and they urge people not to panic. Here’s what we know so far:

On December 18, South Africa announced the detection of a new variant of the coronavirus that was rapidly spreading in three provinces in the country and becoming the dominant species in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

South Africa named the variant “501Y.V2” because of the N501Y mutation they found in the spike protein the virus uses to access cells in the body. This mutation was also found, among other things, in the new strain that identified the UK in December (but has been estimated to have been in circulation since September), both of which increase the transmissibility of the virus, allowing it to spread more efficiently.

With authorities in both the UK and South Africa informing the World Health Organization (WHO) in December of the new mutations – both countries are known for their genomic sequencing, or ‘surveillance’ of the virus – the WHO noted that although both variants in the UK (named “VOC-202012/01, where VOC stands for” Variant of Concern “) and South Africa shared the N501Y mutation, they are different.

The South African variant carries two other mutations in the spike protein (E484K and K417N) that are not present in the British strain, and experts said these could affect the action of vaccines against Covid-19.

Some experts and health officials are concerned about the South African variant, now better known as “501.V2”. So far, it has only been found in a handful of cases, WHO noted Tuesday, albeit in an increasing number of countries, including the UK, France, Switzerland, Japan, Austria and Zambia.

Several countries have banned flights from South Africa (and the UK) due to the new variants of the virus in an attempt to stop its spread.

Earlier this week, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the variant found in South Africa was of particular concern. “I am incredibly concerned about the South African variant, which is why we have taken the action we have taken to limit all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC’s “Today” program on Monday.

“This is a very, very big problem … and it is even more of a problem than the new variant in the UK,” he said without further explanation.

On Tuesday, former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb says that vaccination of Americans against Covid is more important than ever, especially since the new South African variant appears to inhibit antibodies and spread elsewhere.

“The South African variant is very concerning at the moment because it looks like it could take away some of our medical countermeasures, particularly the antibody drugs,” Gottlieb told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday.

“Right now, that species appears to be widespread in South America and Brazil, the two parts of the world, at the moment, which are in their summer, but also going through a very dense epidemic, which is worrying.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for their part, noted on Sunday that scientists are investigating the variants “to better understand how easily they can be transmitted and whether currently approved vaccines will protect people from them.”

“Currently, there is no evidence that these variants cause more serious disease or increased risk of death. New information on the virological, epidemiological and clinical features of these variants is emerging quickly,” he added.

As countries struggle to initiate or accelerate vaccination programs, such as the UK, experts noted that one of the biggest potential consequences of emerging variants is their “ability to bypass natural or vaccine-induced immunity”.

Both vaccination against and natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus) produce a ‘polyclonal’ response targeting different parts of the spike protein. The virus would likely need to accumulate multiple mutations in the spike protein to achieve immunity. avoid those caused by vaccines or by natural infection, ”the CDC noted Sunday in its letter on the emerging variants.

The ability to bypass vaccination-induced immunity is the CDC’s most worrying possible consequence of emerging strains’ because once a large proportion of the population is vaccinated there will be immune pressures that could promote and accelerate the emergence of such variants by Selecting. for ‘escape mutants’. ”

However, the CDC stressed that “there is no evidence that this is happening, and most experts believe escape mutants are unlikely to appear due to the nature of the virus.”

How did it begin?

How and where these variants came from is unclear, experts point out, noting that it is unfair to blame countries for mutations, as they may have come from somewhere but were discovered by certain countries who were looking for them , ie by countries that implement advanced surveillance. of viruses and are thus likely to find more mutations.

For example, the UK variant was found by the ‘Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium’, which performs random genetic sequencing of positive Covid-19 samples in the UK.Since its inception in April 2020, the consortium has sequenced 170,256 viruses taken from humans infected with Covid-19. It uses the data to detect outbreaks and identify variant viruses and publishes its data weekly.