After causing disaster in India, new strain of Covid has reached Europe

India is going through a period of crisis Due to new variant of the coronavirus who is originally from this Asian country and has now reached Europe. Several countries of the Old Continent such as Germany, Italy, France and Romania reported that they had previously recorded cases for Covid-19 of the Indian variant, which is considered more contagious.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that this new strain is already spreading across Europe.

“WHO has added B.1.617 detected in India to the variants of interest, and we are seeing its expansion now. It is very important to understand that any country can experience a situation like the one India is going through.“said the head of the WHO European regional office, Hans kluge.

“The relaxation of personal protection measures, mass gatherings, a large number of variants and a very low vaccination rate could generate a perfect storm in any country,” added Kluge. Kluge’s warnings coincide with reports from Germany, Italy, France and Romania of local infections in which this mutation is identified, the news agency reports. AFP.

New variant of Indian coronavirus: how it affects health

“To have isolated cases in Germany, tomorrow we will publish a new report, “he said Lothar Wieler, director of the infectious diseases agency of the Robert Koch Institute.

At Italy, health authorities found 23 positive cases on a flight from India to Rome with 213 passengers and 10 crew members. “Yesterday evening, on the flight from India which landed at 9.15 p.m. local at the Roman airport of Fiumicino with 213 passengers and 10 crew members, 23 people were positive”, reported Alessio D’Amato, advisor health for the Straight region.

The case has put Italian authorities on high alert, who fear the spread of the Indian strain of the coronavirus hitting the Asian country, although – they admitted – so far this is the case too early to know if indeed among the positives detected there were any with this variant.

Southwest of France There was also a case of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, announced the Regional Health Agency of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. “We identified that it was the Indian variant” in the case of infection “of a patient returning from India and that he had to take another test because he had to go abroad again, ”he said. Benoît Elleboode, regional director of the agency, on television channels BFMTV and CNews.

“We identified that this was the variant India and the entire device for tracing contacts, isolating and protecting all people has been put into service, ”he added.

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RomaniaMeanwhile, he reported that he detected the first case of the variant found in India in a 26-year-old patient who arrived from the Asian country about a month ago with mild symptoms. The health ministry added that it was monitoring an outbreak of coronavirus cases among construction workers recently arrived from India in a village in Brasov County.

“The first case of the ‘Indian’ strain of Covid-19 has been detected in Swiss“It is a passenger who arrived by a transit airport”, communicated the Federal Office of Public Health of this country a few days ago in his Twitter account. The text added that consultations focused on possibility of including India in a list of dangerous countries in terms of the epidemiological situation, reported the Sputnik news agency.

The dangerousness of this strain, discovered for the first time in the Indian state of West Bengal, is due to the fact that is considered a double mutation of the virus.

Ihor Perehinets, WHO / Europe technical advisor, said the the double mutation present in the Indian variant could neutralize the effectiveness of the antibodies, both those who know used for treatment such as those developed by a person recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection

Why Migrations warned against travel to India

“But this is something that is still being investigated and it is still too early to draw any unequivocal conclusions as to whether this lineage, this mutation of the virus, has caused an infection boom,” added the expert.

Perehinets recalled that five states in India held elections recently, with mass rallies and closer contacts than those recommended by the WHO under pandemic conditions.

In addition to B.1.617 which circulates widely in India and has also been detected in a twenty other countries, in the state of West Bengal identified a triple mutation line, B.1.618, which may be more contagious.

India, now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, renewed the maximums in the last 24 hours with 379,257 additional infections and 3,645 associated deaths.

ED / DS