South Carolina discovers the first known American case

The first Covid-19 cases in the US of a new, highly contagious strain of the virus first found in South Africa have been discovered in South Carolina, the state’s health department said Thursday.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said the strain, known as B.1.351, was found in two adults with no history of travel or connection to each other. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention informed South Carolina health officials late on Wednesday that a sample tested at LabCorp was the B.1.351 variant, the health department said Thursday.

The state’s own public health laboratory later identified “a separate case of the same variant” in a sample tested Monday, the South Carolina Department of Health said in a statement. While the species appears to be highly transmissible, it doesn’t seem to make people any sicker, the health department said.

“The arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolina people that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, the department’s interim director, said in a statement.

Mutant strains of the coronavirus have migrated to the US in recent weeks. Minnesota health officials on Monday identified the first US case of a similar variant first discovered in Brazil. The US has also identified more than 300 cases with another strain first found in the UK known as B.1.1.7, according to recent data from the CDC.

The appearance of these new species is no surprise to scientists. The US is rapidly increasing its surveillance efforts to track the new strains through genomic sequencing, which may come from overseas or “come from our own country,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the CDC, last week.

“The CDC is early in its efforts to understand this variant and will continue to provide updates as we learn more,” the health department said in a statement. “CDC’s recommendations to slow the spread – wearing masks, staying at least six feet apart, avoiding crowds, ventilating indoor areas, and washing hands often – will also prevent the spread of this variant.”

Both strains of the virus found in the UK and South Africa have similar mutations, but experts say they developed separately. While it’s no surprise that the virus is mutating, researchers are quickly trying to determine what the changes could mean for recently developed life-saving vaccines and treatments for the disease.

The B.1.351 strain appears to be more problematic than the emerging variety found in the UK, said health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci of the White House Wednesday. Fauci said at a news conference that the antibodies induced by the vaccine may be less effective at fighting that strain, although “it is still well within the protective cushion.”

The initial findings published in the preprint server bioRxiv, which are not yet to be peer reviewed, indicate that the B.1.351 variant can evade the antibodies of some coronavirus treatments and reduce the effectiveness of the current line of vaccines available. On Monday, Moderna said its vaccine may be less effective against the B.1.351 strain and that it is developing a so-called booster shot to protect itself against that variant “with an abundance of caution.”

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a CNN interview Wednesday that the new mRNA technology used to develop the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines – the only two to receive an emergency permit to date. in the US – can be easily modified to target variants.

Those booster shots wouldn’t have to go through the rigorous phase three clinical trials that required thousands of participants, he added.

“You don’t have to do a 30,000 person trial or a 40,000 person trial,” Fauci said. “You’re working with the FDA and you could be bridging information from one study to another. The bottom line is that we’re already working on it.”

– CNBC’s Will Feuer contributed to this report.