British coronavirus variant on course to ‘sweep the world’, says geneticist

LONDON – A variant of the coronavirus that first appeared in the UK and has since been identified in more than 80 countries, could become the dominant form of the virus globally, according to the head of the UK’s genetic surveillance program -United.

“The new variant has swept the country and it will sweep the world in all likelihood,” said Professor Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium.

“Going forward, I think the key will be whether something (a variant) is particularly problematic with vaccines,” she told the BBC’s Newcast podcast.

The group Peacock is leading was created in April 2020 and brings together highly respected experts and institutes to collect, sequence and analyze the genomes of the virus, as part of the UK pandemic response. To date, he has followed the genetic history of more than 250,000 samples of the virus.

The consortium first detected the virus’ most infectious mutation, dubbed the ‘UK variant’ and officially known as’ B1.1.7 ‘, in Kent, south-east England in September 2020 , through retrospective analysis of virus samples.

Viruses mutate all the time, but experts worry when a virus mutates to become more transmissible, as in this case, or more deadly. The higher infection rates associated with the variant identified in the UK are likely to lead to more hospitalizations and, unfortunately, more deaths. As a result, containing it has become a priority.

The variant has spread rapidly across south-east England and London and has now become the dominant strain in the UK, and has also been detected in over 80 countries, according to the Organization’s latest count. World Health Organization, sending health authorities to scramble to isolate cases, although the more virulent strain is believed to be already widely in circulation.

It is difficult to know the exact origin of the mutation, and given the work of the consortium, it was likely that new variants would be found in the UK (other countries which have advanced sequencing of the virus genome, such as Denmark and South Africa have also discovered variants.). Peacock, who is also a professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said she believed sequencing the coronavirus variants would be necessary for at least 10 years.

So far, there have been more than 107 million cases of coronavirus and more than 2.3 million deaths worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In addition to the variant of the virus first seen in south-east England, two new variants have emerged in a cluster of cases in the cities of Liverpool and Bristol, which scientists are currently monitoring.

The Bristol variant has been designated a ‘variant of concern’ by the UK Advisory Group on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats.

Peacock said that although mutant variants are a concern, the variant seen in and around Bristol was in “confined areas and in very low numbers”, with only 21 cases detected to date.

“It is inevitable that the virus will continue to mutate, but what is worrying is that the B1.1.7 variant that we have been circulating for weeks and months is starting to mutate again and undergo further mutations, which could affect the way we treat the virus in terms of immunity and vaccine effectiveness, ”she added.

Dr Catherine Smallwood, head of emergencies in the WHO Europe team, told a press briefing on Thursday that variant B1.1.7 “is now circulating very clearly in the communities of more than half of the population. countries in the (European) region “. The WHO European region comprises 53 countries.

“And this particular variant of concern, especially in western European countries, is spreading in terms of prevalence, faster than other lineages. And so it’s very important to keep an eye on overall transmission rates because very rapidly, once it becomes dominant, it can impact the epidemic curve as a whole and may lead to the need for a more restrictive approach to the public health and social measures put in place so that transmission rates overall may decrease. “