Covid-19 is a virus that continues to mutate. British, South African, Brazilian … The emergence of new variants worries health authorities. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh (UK) recently detected B.1.525, a new strain of SARS-CoV-2, which is already spreading in 13 countries. The first cases were first identified in the UK and Nigeria.
Covid-19: the E484 mutation identified among the new variants of the virus
Also called the 'Nigerian variant', this new strain was spotted by SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing which began in December 2020. Scientists said 44 new cases of B.1.525 contamination were recorded on British territory The other affected countries are Denmark (35), Nigeria (29), United States (12), Canada (5), France (5), Ghana (5), Australia (2), Jordan (2), Singapore (1), Finland (1), Belgium and Spain (1).
In their report, the Scottish researchers pointed out that the Nigerian variant shared characteristics with the British variant, such as the E484 mutation of the Spike protein. This protein allows the virus in particular to penetrate cells and infect them.
According to an Australian study published last January on the site BioRxiv, the E484 mutation would promote the resistance of the virus to antibodies: the latter would therefore be ten times less sensitive to the virus. This alteration of the Spike protein is also present in the South African and Brazilian variants.
Is vaccination effective against these new strains?
A large majority of countries have started their vaccination campaign against Covid-19. Could the emergence of this new variant compromise the immunity guaranteed by the vaccines? "We don't yet know how far this variant will spread, but if it does, it can be assumed that immunity to any previous vaccine or infection will be weakened, " Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told our colleagues from Guardian UK.
For Dr. Lucy Van Dorp, a researcher at the Institute of Genetics at the University of London, it is "crucial" to detect new variants of Covid-19 quickly. "One of the advantages of genomic surveillance is to quickly locate new strains of potential concern. This allows for an assessment of their impact and prevalence on a global scale ", she explained at the Guardian UK.
Public Health England (PHE), the UK government's public health department, recently reported that it is closely monitoring the development of this new variant. The PHE also clarified that there is no data to prove that these mutations cause more severe forms of the disease or promote transmission of the virus.
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