They discover a variant of the coronavirus that appears to be resistant to vaccines | the Chronicle

A study conducted by the Tokyo Medical and Dental University Medical Hospital in March, he concluded that 70% of patients with Covid-19 that were analyzed there carried an E484K mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, baptized as Eek.

This Eek mutation, named after some scientists, was detected in 10 of 14 people who tested positive in the Tokyo Medical and Dental University Medical Hospital in March, according to the report.

Within two months until March, 12 of the 36 Covid patients were carriers of the mutation, and none of them had recently traveled abroad or been in contact with people who had.

On the eve of the Summer Olympics, which are set to begin in July, Japan is grappling with a new wave of infections. Health experts are particularly concerned about the release of new variants, when large-scale vaccination of the population has not yet started.

As, Indonesia reported its first case of a new, more transmissible variant of the coronavirus famous for reduce vaccine protection, but the government said those used in the country could resist mutation.

The the new variant contains the E484K mutation found in cases first identified in South Africa and Brazil, and this is what some scientists They call him Eek for his apparent ability to evade natural immunity from a previous Covid-19 infection and reduce the protection offered by current vaccines.

Nadia Tarmizi sites, a senior Indonesian health ministry official said on Tuesday that a case of a variant had recovered and had not infected close contacts, adding that vaccines currently available in Indonesia could resist the mutation.

However, Herawati Sudoyo, The deputy director of basic research at the government-funded Eijkman Institute, specializing in medical molecular biology and biotechnology, warned that the ability of vaccines to resist the mutation remains to be determined.

The first case of the variant comes as the country braces for a reduction in the supply of Covid-19 vaccines due to restrictions on the export of doses of AstraZeneca imposed by India to prioritize its supplies national.

About this variant, Victor Jimenez Cid, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and member of the Spanish Society of Microbiology, said that it would probably have evolved from South African or Brazilian strains.

“It’s probably one of those variations, which spread in Japan, and it evolved. This mutation greatly affects the neutralizing capacity of some of the antibodies. When we have already been infected with other different variants, some antibodies do not work. It is capable of reducing efficiency, but it does not eliminate it ”, He said on 20 minutes.

As, José Poveda, Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, said it is clear that this variant can escape antibodies generated by a previous Covid infection.

“Eek is the Japanese variant of SARS-CoV-2 and it has just come into play. The mutation of the S protein E484k, renamed Eek, seems to be able to escape the antibodies generated by a previous infection with Covid as well as vaccines. developed so far “, he warned.