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An increasingly common mutation of the new coronavirus found in Europe, North America and parts of Asia may be more infectious but appears to be less fatal, according to a leading infectious disease specialist.
Paul Tambyah, senior consultant at the National University of Singapore and president-elect of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, said evidence suggests that the proliferation of the D614G mutation in some parts of the world has coincided with declining death rates , suggesting that she is less lethal.
“Maybe it’s a good thing to have a more infectious but less deadly virus,” Tambyah quoted in a Reuters report on Tuesday.
Tambyah said most viruses tend to become less virulent as they mutate.
“It is in the interest of the virus to infect more people but not to kill them because a virus depends on the host for its food and shelter,” he said.
Scientists discovered the mutation as early as February and it circulated in Europe and the Americas without any evidence that it led to more serious disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Malaysia’s chief health officer Noor Hisham Abdullah on Sunday called for greater public vigilance after authorities detected what they believe to be the D614G mutation of the coronavirus in two recent groups.
Questions about vaccines
Sebastian Maurer-Stroh of the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research said the variant has also been found in the city-state, but containment measures have prevented a large-scale spread.
Noor Hisham from Malaysia said the D614G strain detected was 10 times more infectious and vaccines currently in development may not be effective against it.
But Tambyah and Maurer-Stroh said such mutations likely wouldn’t modify the virus enough to make potential vaccines less effective.
“(The) variants are almost identical and haven’t changed the areas that our immune systems typically recognize, so there shouldn’t be any difference for vaccines under development,” Maurer-Stroh said.
The Philippines has also detected the strain among random samples of the coronavirus in metro Manila, according to reports.
The mutation “would have a greater possibility of transmission or infectivity, but we still do not have enough strong evidence to say that this will happen,” Philippine Under Secretary of Health Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Monday. .
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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