Beta Advances, and Worse Than Delta: It Already “Escapes” the Effect of Two Vaccines, Causes Third Wave in Key Country – Economic, Financial and Economic News



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By the end of 2020, the world health organization (WHO) detected a new variant of the coronavirus. He named it 501Y.V2 and added it to the causes of the pandemic. This strain ignited the alert because it turned out to be a mutation resistant to at least two of the available vaccines, according to preliminary studies.

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Six months later, as the world watches with concern the advance of the Delta variant in the UK, which sees a worrying increase in cases just on the eve of the end of the third lockdown that began in December, This new strain, called BETA, is already at the origin of the third wave in a key country and there are fears of creating epidemiological chaos similar to that suffered by India, whose international rebound is still in the making.

Its virulence is such that yesterday South Africa, where it was first detected, technically entered the third wave of the coronavirus during the declaration over 9,000 new infections in the last 24 hours.

South Africa is the country most affected by the coronavirus on the continent. A the end of last year suffered a second wave, with more than 10,000 new infections per day. Until now, there were already more than 1.7 million cases and 57,410 deaths. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa decreed at the end of May a strict containment, which has extended curfew hours and the closure of non-essential businesses.

The global alert is based on Beta has been shown to be resistant to two of the most reliable vaccines for containing the pandemic: Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

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What do we know about the new Beta strain

The main concern is that Beta spreads much faster between people, even compared to Delta and other variants of Covid-19. Why Has changes in the strategic peak protein, what facilitates infection and speeds up its spread in the body.

This produces more virus in an infected person, which in turn can spread more easily to other people, resulting in faster spread as a possible end result “.

This variant, dominant in South Africa, has already been detected in more than 80% of cases. Yes It has an aggravating factor: it is able to escape antibodies from previous variants of the coronavirus, even in those who have already received two doses of one of the available vaccines. But, according to preliminary studies, “it doesn’t look like the virus is going to make people sicker or cause more deaths,” or require treatments different from those currently in place.

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What vaccines don’t work against the beta variant

Research conducted at Tel Aviv University found that the Beta variant is resistant to the vaccine from Pfizer and Biontech.

In Israel, 1% of cases already have this Covid-19 mutation. “It was detected that patients infected 14 days after administering the first dose of Pfizer and Biontech vaccine, less than 0.5% contracted the Beta strain. But among those infected 14 days after receiving the vaccine second dose, 5.4% were carriers of the variant of South African origin “, reports on the report.

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In addition, the AstraZeneca vaccine is not effective against the beta variant. This has been demonstrated by a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial in South Africa, carried out in people 14 days after application of the second dose.

The findings showed greater resistance to the Beta variant: “Among participants infected with Covid-19, 92.9% were caused by the Beta variant,” it was reported. Another conclusion: “the 2-dose AstraZeneca regimen did not show protection against mild to moderate COVID-19 due to the South African variant. “

what data worries the world

90% of African countries will fall short of global immunization targets if they do not receive “urgently”, from ac to September, at least 225 million vaccines, warned the WHO.

Only 7 African countries out of 54 have the potential to achieve the goal, ”said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Director for Africa. Only 2% of the 1.3 billion Africans received an injection and only 9.4 million Africans are fully immunized.

Given this situation, WHO has again called on rich countries to distribute their vaccines. Its a question of life or death”, enfatiz Moeti.

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Africa officially has nearly 5 million cases of coronavirus. According to the WHO, “the pandemic tends to increase in 10 African countries, including 4 that register an increase of more than 30% in the last 7 days, compared to the previous week, “the agency warned.

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