The Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2 is present in 44 countries, including Argentina

The variant of the COVID-19 disease responsible for the second deadly wave in India was found in 44 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which on May 11 classified it as “of great global concern”.

The United Nations health agency said that variant B.1.617, responsible for the massive increase in cases in India, detected in more than 4500 samples uploaded to an open access database “Out of 44 countries in the six WHO regions”, including the United States, Great Britain, Argentina, China, Singapore, Canada, Australia and France.

“WHO has received reports of detections from five other countries,” the organization said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic. This new variant was first found in October in India and it is believed to spread faster than the original virus and is considered more dangerous. It was also reclassified as a “variant of concern” by the WHO and added to the list containing three other variants of COVID, which were first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa.

“A recent risk assessment of the situation in India by the WHO found that the resurgence and accelerating transmission of COVID in India had several potential factors., including an increase in the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 variant cases with potentially increased transmissibility, ”he said. He also noted that the spread of India could have been the result of “various religious and political mass gatherings which have increased social mix; and under-use and reduced compliance with social and public health measures ”.

According to the WHO, Outside of India, the country that has reported the most cases of COVID with this variant is Great Britain. He also noted “preliminary evidence” that the variant was more resistant to treatment with the monoclonal antibody Bamlanivimab, and highlighted early laboratory studies indicating “limited reduction in neutralization by antibodies”. In the report, he stressed that the “real impacts” on the efficacy of vaccines against the variant, for example, “could be limited”, adding that the spread of B.1.617, along with other more transmissible variants, appears to be one of the many factors that have fueled the dramatic increase in the number of new cases and deaths in India.

With 1.3 billion people, reported 200,000 new infections in the past 24 hours and resulted in 3,500 deaths. There are already nearly 27 million people infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Detected in Argentina this monthIt is technically known as B.1.617 and has more than a dozen mutations. It has been called a “double mutant” for two important mutations: E484Q and L452R (which it shares with the California variant), and it could help the virus escape certain types of antibodies generated by the same immune system.

This variant first appeared in October and is now the most common in India. It has been found in Britain, the United States, Israel, among 28 other countries. In dialogue with Infobae, Humberto Debat, a virology researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) and member of Proyecto País, which carries out genomic surveillance for the coronavirus and reports to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, commented: “The variant that has been detected in India includes three sublines. Has mutations associated with the possibility of a new immune breakout. It may be even more transmissible than the British variant. This would have no impact on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. “

Of the five variants of global concern, four have been detected in Argentina: Manaus, England, India and South Africa. The three travelers who were tested in Ezeiza and who had the coronavirus with worrying variants have become isolated, according to the director of epidemiology of the Nation’s Ministry of Health, Analía Rearte, reported Monday.

Why variations appear

In the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, there is a 30,000 letter string representing the chemical properties that make up its genome. To replicate, the coronavirus attaches itself to the outside of a human cell and then enters it: it hijacks the cellular machinery and directs it to make copies of the virus.

When an infected cell produces new coronaviruses, it sometimes makes small copying errors called “mutations”. “There are one or two transfers per month”, said Infobae Julia Lo Medico, biologist specializing in phylogenetics, who recently lectured at a training meeting of the Argentine Association of Respiratory Medicine.

When scientists find that there are distinctive mutations that increase their frequency, they call it a “variant.” “This is the warning that something can happen,” Lo Medico said. “Each variant has one or more mutations”, he pointed out. “When a variant increases its frequency by more than 30% regionally or 20% globally, it becomes a lineage. Over time and with more infections, it promotes more mutations ”.

A variant has one or more mutations that differentiate it from other circulating variants. As expected at the start of the pandemic, multiple variants of the coronavirus have been reported around the world. Some of them expressed concerns about the possibility of prolonging the pandemic or because of the risk of making vaccines less effective.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in March established the new criteria for classifying variants of the coronavirus with the idea of ​​improving the quality of treatment which is offered to affected patients. They are used to assess levels of transmission and the risk they pose to the population.

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