Delta and Delta Plus variants advance in the world and WHO says “no country is safe”

The Delta variant of the coronavirus has raised alarms around the world for its tendency to globalize over other mutations. However, what is your real risk? Is it more deadly? Challenge vaccines?

The general manager of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Friday that this particular lineage of the virus, already detected in 98 countries, means that the pandemic is at a “very dangerous” time.

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The Ethiopian expert warned that the delta “is rapidly becoming dominant” because it is more contagious than the variants previously detected, and that “No country is completely safe”.

However, according to experts consulted by Efe, the global alarm stems from a question of population proportions, which has challenged many vulnerable and collapsed health systems, and not from the increase in the lethality of the virus. .

What is the origin of the Delta and Delta Plus variants?

As explained at Efe Julian Villabona-Arenas, researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the “delta variant (B.1.617.2) was detected for the first time in the India last February ”, although the WHO has data from the end of 2020.

Scientists have called “Delta Plus” to “a slightly different version of the Delta variant,” which Villabona-Arenas says has “an additional mutation -K417N- that affects the viral peak, the protein that adheres to cells that it infects ”.

On this small variation, Public Health England, the UK’s public health agency, has records from at least April of this year.

WHO, as its director pointed out on Friday, qualified the group as a variant of concern, that is to say a lineage of the coronavirus that requires increased epidemiological surveillance due to its distribution around the world.

Are they more contagious? Are they more deadly?

Experts from Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the US affiliate of WHO, responded live to inquiries from Efe on the evolution of these variants, particularly in alert regions such as America.

In your assessments, Jairo Mendez-Rico, PAHO’s adviser on viral diseases, considered that “we have seen that the variants have become more contagious “, which caused its diffusion in so many territories.

However, they are not more fatal or cause various symptoms. “There is no scientific evidence to say that he is more aggressive or that it generates more deaths, ”he said.

“If I have more people who are infected, there is a greater chance that these people will get seriously ill and eventually die., but it is an effect of proportion and not an effect of the virus, ”explained Méndez-Rico.

“There is a question that the Delta variant kills more young people, but it is simply a perception,” added the scientist.

“As in many countries, the highest risk population, the elderly, have started to get vaccinated, so the virus is moving. And among young people, who in fact have become more flexible with the measures, the virus is circulating and there we are starting to see a large number of infected, ”added Méndez-Rico.

What is the real risk of these variants?

“The question of variants, which we have been hearing for a long time, is a normal question in the process of evolution and mutation of the virus, which has been occurring since the start of the pandemic,” Méndez-Rico noted in the PAHO broadcast. . .

According to the WHO, this is a natural process in a viral disease, as seen before with dozens of variants of other viruses like the common flu, which, although more transmissible, do not generate more serious illness.

However, according to the specialist, there are reasons that ring the alarm bell globally. “These variants are causing a global wave, again increasing the pressure on all health systems. Speeding up vaccination is essential right now “, he alerted, highlighting the situation in America.

There, he said, there is “a significant risk given the fraction of adults who have not even received a dose of the vaccine. Therefore, these variants represent a greater threat to countries with the lowest immunization coverage “.

So far in America, the Delta has community circulation in 14 countries. In Argentina, it was only detected in travelers returning from abroad.

Are vaccines still effective?

“As these are more transmissible variants, the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing contagion Can decrease, but not so much the effectiveness of avoiding hospitalization and death, because ultimately it is the same virus, “he said. Heriberto García Escorza, director of the Institute of Public Health of Chile, in conversation with PAHO.

For his part, Mendez-Rico assured that “the good news is that so far, the vaccines that have been authorized are considered to be they are effective against all these variants “. And he added: “Some protect better than others, but all reduce the possibility of serious illness”, he exposed.

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Villabona-Arenas believes that “some of the mutations in these variants may contribute to immune evasion, although there is still not enough evidence to conclude this with great confidence.”

“In any case, the two AstraZeneca and Pfizer they generate broad antibody responses and appear to work well in protecting against serious disease, ”he concluded.

South African scientists reported on Friday that Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine also shows positive results in this country against Delta and Beta variants