Vaccine-resistant variant of COVID-19 mutation causes explosion in India, World Health Organization says

A variant of Covid-19 that is spreading in India is more contagious and there are concerns that it may bypass some vaccine protections, thus contributing to the explosive epidemic in the country, the chief scientist of the World Organization said on Saturday.

In an interview with AFP, Soumya Swaminathan warned that “the epidemiological features we see today in India indicate that this is a very fast spreading variant.”

India recorded for the first time more than 4,000 deaths from the Covid-19 virus on Saturday in just 24 hours and more than 400,000 new infections. New Delhi has struggled to contain the epidemic, which has overwhelmed its healthcare system, and many experts suspect the official death and case figures are a gross understatement.

Indian pediatrician and clinician Swaminathan said The B.1.617 variant of Covid-19, which was first detected in India last October, clearly contributed to the disaster unfolding in its country. “There have been a lot of accelerators that have fed off of that,” the 62-year-old said, noting that “a virus that spreads faster is one of them.”

WHO recently listed B.1.617 – which has several sublines with slightly different mutations and characteristics – as a “variant of interest”.

Antibody resistant?

But so far it has not added it to its short list of “disturbing variants,” a label that says it is more dangerous than the original version of the virus because it is more transmissible, deadly, or able to overtake it. vaccine protections. Several national health authorities, including those in the United States and Britain, have meanwhile said they see B.1.617 as a worrying variant, and Swaminathan said he hopes the WHO will follow suit soon. his example.

“B 1.617 is likely to be a worrying variant because it has mutations which increase transmission and which could also make it resistant to antibodies generated by vaccination or natural infection,” he said.

But he insisted that The variant alone cannot be held responsible for the dramatic increase in cases and deaths in India, highlighting “the enormous social mix and large gatherings” of recent months. Massive election rallies organized by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other politicians have, for example, been partially blamed for the staggering rise in infections.

But even when many in India believed the crisis was over, stopping wearing masks and other protective measures, the virus was quietly spreading.

“In a country as large as India, transmission can occur at low levels, as it has for many months,” Swaminathan said. “It was endemic (and) probably increasing gradually,” he said, denouncing that “those early signs were overlooked until it got to the point where it took off vertically.”

“At this point it is very difficult to remove, because then it involves tens of thousands of people and multiplies at a rate that is very difficult to stop.”

Although India is trying to increase vaccination to stem the epidemic, Swaminathan warned that the bites alone would not be enough to control the situation.

He noted that India, the world’s largest vaccine-producing country, had only fully immunized about 2% of the more than 1.3 billion people. “It will take several months, if not years, to achieve 70% or 80% coverage,” he said.

In this context, Swaminathan stressed that “for the immediate future we must rely on our proven social and public health measures” to reduce transmission.

The outbreak in India is terrifying not only because of the sheer number of people falling ill and dying there, but also because exploding infection numbers dramatically increase the chances of new, more dangerous variants emerging.

“The more the virus replicates, spreads and transmits, the more likely it is that … mutations will develop and adapt,” Swaminathan said. “Variants that accumulate many mutations can end up becoming resistant to the current vaccines we have,” he warned. “It’s going to be a problem for everyone.”

With information from AFP

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