[ad_1]
(Added comments from the Singapore agency)
SINGAPORE, Aug. 18 (Reuters) – An increasingly common mutation of the novel coronavirus found in Europe, North America and parts of Asia may be more infectious but appears less fatal, prominent infectious disease doctor says .
Paul Tambyah, senior consultant at the National University of Singapore and president-elect of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, said evidence suggests that the proliferation of the D614G mutation in some parts of the world has coincided with declining death rates , suggesting that she is less lethal.
“Maybe it’s a good thing to have a more infectious but less deadly virus,” Tambyah told Reuters.
Tambyah said most viruses tend to become less virulent as they mutate.
“It is in the interest of the virus to infect more people but not to kill them because a virus depends on the host for its food and shelter,” he said.
Scientists discovered the mutation as early as February and it circulated in Europe and the Americas, the World Health Organization said. The WHO also said there was no evidence the mutation led to more serious illness.
Malaysia’s chief health officer Noor Hisham Abdullah on Sunday called for greater public vigilance after authorities detected what they believe to be the D614G mutation of the coronavirus in two recent groups.
Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, of the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research, said the variant was also found in the city-state, but containment measures had prevented a large-scale spread.
Noor Hisham from Malaysia said the D614G strain detected was 10 times more infectious and vaccines currently in development may not be effective against this mutation.
But Tambyah and Maurer-Stroh said such mutations likely wouldn’t change the virus enough to make potential vaccines less effective.
“(The) variants are almost identical and haven’t changed the areas that our immune systems typically recognize, so there shouldn’t be any difference for vaccines under development,” Maurer-Stroh said. (Report by John Geddie and Chen Lin edited by Lincoln Feast)
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
[ad_2]
Source link