South Carolina detects first known U.S. case

The first cases of Covid-19 in the United States of a new, highly contagious strain of the virus first discovered in South Africa have been detected in South Carolina, the state’s health department said Thursday.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said the strain, known as B.1.351, was found in two adults with no history of travel or connection to one another. ‘other. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention informed South Carolina health officials Wednesday evening that a sample tested at LabCorp was variant B.1.351, the health department said Thursday.

The state’s own public health lab “later identified a separate case of the same variant” in a sample tested Monday, the South Carolina Department of Health said in a statement. Although the strain appears to be highly transmissible, it doesn’t seem to make people any sicker, the health department said.

“The arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolinians that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, Acting Director of the department, in a press release.

Mutated strains of the coronavirus have migrated to the United States in recent weeks. Minnesota health officials on Monday identified the first U.S. case of a similar variant that was first detected in Brazil. The United States has also identified more than 300 cases with another strain first found in the UK, known as B.1.1.7, according to recent data from the CDC.

The appearance of these new varieties did not surprise scientists. The United States is quickly trying to step up surveillance efforts to track new strains through genomic sequencing, which could come from abroad or “emanate from our own country,” Dr Rochelle Walensky, the United States, said last week. new director of the CDC.

“The CDC is at the start of its efforts to understand this variant and will continue to provide updates as we learn more,” the health agency said in a statement. “The CDC’s recommendations to slow the spread – wear masks, stay at least 6 feet from each other, avoid crowds, ventilate indoor spaces and wash your hands often – will also prevent the spread of this variant.”

The two strains of the virus found in the UK and South Africa share similar mutations, but experts say they developed separately. While it’s not surprising that the virus mutates, researchers are quickly trying to determine what the changes might mean for recently developed life-saving vaccines and treatments for the disease.

The B.1.351 strain appears to be more problematic than the emerging variant found in the UK, White House health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday. Fauci said during a press briefing that the antibodies induced by the vaccine may be less effective in combating the strain, although “she is still well in the protective cushion.”

The first results published on the bioRxiv preprint server, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, indicate that the B.1.351 variant may escape the antibodies provided by some coronavirus treatments and may reduce the effectiveness of the current range of vaccines available. On Monday, Moderna said its vaccine may be less effective against the B.1.351 strain and that it is developing a so-called booster to guard against this variant “out of caution.”

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Wednesday in an interview with CNN that the new mRNA technology used to develop Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines – the only two to date to receive a emergency clearance in US – can be easily adjusted to target variants.

These booster shots would not need to go through the rigorous phase three clinical trials that required thousands of participants, he added.

“You don’t have to go to trial for 30,000 people or 40,000 people,” Fauci said. “You work with the FDA and you can tie information from one trial to another. At the end of the day, we’re already there.”

– CNBC’s Will Feuer contributed to this report.