WHO has reported that the Indian variant has already been detected …

World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern about the variant B.1.617 of the coronavirus, better known as the Indian variant, which has already been detected in more than 17 countries. This variant, the international body warned, would be more contagious than others and more resistant to vaccines and treatments against the disease. In recent days, India has become the epicenter of the pandemic, with a world record of infections and mass crematoriums in the middle of the street.

According to the weekly report presented by the WHO on Tuesday, the B.1.617 variant has been detected in more than 1,200 genomic sequences, in “at least 17 countries (…) Most of the sequences uploaded into the GISAID database come from India, the UK, US and Singapore“. Cases of the Indian variant have also been found in Belgium, Switzerland, Greece and Italy, among other countries.

The “B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other variants circulating in India, which suggests that it is more contagious“, detailed the international organization in its report.

Even like that, WHO has classified this variant as a “variant of interest” and not as “a disturbing variant”, which would mean that it is a type of coronavirus that is more dangerous, contagious, deadly and able to escape the protective effect of vaccines. For now, the maximum alert level only applies to the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants.

However, the agency noted that some analyzes carried out in the United States show that vaccines are not as effective against B.1.617 and that preliminary studies with the Novavax-Covaxin vaccine show that it is not able to counter it.

At the moment, India is the epicenter of the pandemic and on Monday it beat the world record of infections with 352,991 new infections and a national record of 2,812 deaths, bringing the total number of cases worldwide to 147.7 million.

According to the WHO, it is necessary to find out if this recrudescence is due only to the new variant or it may also be linked to “other behaviors” such as disregarding health restrictions. The organization pointed out that other variants circulating in India are also highly contagious and the combination of factors “may play a role in reactivating cases”.

“More research” is urgently needed on the contagion, severity and risk of reinfection of the Indian variant, to understand the role it plays in the Indian health crisis, the WHO said.

Last week, new cases in India rose 52%, while the other four countries with high numbers of new infections showed relative declines: the United States saw a 15% drop per week (406,000 ), Brazil 12% (404,000), Turkey 9 percent (378,000) and France 9 percent (211,000).

Despite this panorama, the head of the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, was convinced that the vaccine developed by your laboratory and distributed with Pfizer may be “effective” against Indian variant of coronavirus.

“Our approach is based on lessons learned from cancer. We have experimented with many variations, and so far we have had good results in all of them,” Sahin said.

“I am convinced that we will also achieve good results against the Indian variant.”He added, concerning this covid-19 mutation, much more aggressive than those detected previously. So far, insisted the chief of BioNTech, his vaccine had shown its effectiveness “on practically all” known mutations.

The scientist also recalled that the maximum effectiveness of his vaccine – which reaches 97% – is not reached until seven days after receiving the second dose, and after six months the level of immunity begins to decline.