“The Indian variant may be more contagious and resistant to current vaccines and treatments”

The Indian variant of the coronavirus, also the source of COVID-19 disease and that it could be at the origin of the great rise of the pandemic in South Asia, shows in laboratory studies indications to be more contagious and resistant to certain vaccines and treatments, as warned by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This variant includes mutations “associated with increased transmission” and a reduced ability to neutralize the virus with certain monoclonal antibody treatments, the WHO stressed in its weekly epidemiological report. Likewise, some analyzes carried out in the United States show a possible reduction in the neutralizing effects of vaccines against this variant, and even preliminary studies with the Novavax-Covaxin vaccine show that it is not able to counter it, says the WHO.

The COVID-19 pandemic in India, where it is recorded a record number of more than 350,000 daily cases (more than a third of the world total) is “heartbreaking”, said today the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), which has mobilized aid to help the country.

“WHO is doing everything in its power there, mobilizing equipment and sending aid, including oxygen cylinders., prefabricated mobile hospitals and laboratory equipmentCEO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference today. The Ethiopian expert said WHO had transferred 2,600 staff to the country to support the response of Indian health authorities on the ground.

“The situation in India is a devastating reminder of what the virus can do,” he said at the virtual conference in Geneva. Tedros added that “Globally, the pandemic continues to escalate, with cases increasing for the ninth consecutive week and deaths“. “There have been as many cases worldwide in the past week as in the first 5 months of the pandemic“Illustrated the head of the WHO, who clarified that in some regions of the world (including America and Europe), weekly cases are decreasing slightly.

According to the WHO, global cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic stand at 146 million, of which 3.1 million have died, while national health networks indicate that in The planet has already distributed more than a billion doses of anticovid vaccines. The so-called Indian variant of the coronavirus, suspected of having plunged India into a major health crisis, has been detected in “at least 17 countries,” the WHO said. It is the B.1.617 variant, better known as the Indian variant, which has been detected in more than 1,200 genomic sequences, in “at least 17 countries”.

“Most of the footage uploaded to the GISAID database is from India, the UK, the US and Singapore,” the WHO said in its weekly pandemic report. In recent days, the variant has also been detected in several European countries such as Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Italy. Preliminary WHO modeling based on the sequences provided to GISAID indicates that “B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other variants circulating in India, suggesting that it is more contagious.”

WHO recently classified this variant as a “variant of interest” and not as a “variant of concern”. If it was the latter, it would mean it was more dangerous (more contagious, more deadly, and able to avoid vaccines).

The variant still raises questions. The upsurge in cases in India may also be due to “other behaviorsWHO declares, as non-compliance with sanitary restrictions and meetings. The organization points out that other variants that are circulating are also highly contagious and that the combination of factors “may play a role in reactivating cases” in India.

India faces an explosion of cases, breaking a world record with 352,991 new infections and a national record of 2,812 deaths on Monday, bringing the total number of cases worldwide to 147.7 million.

“Urgent additional research is needed on the contagion, severity and risk of reinfection of the Indian variant, to understand the role it plays in the Indian health crisis,” urged the world health organization.

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