Why the COVID-19 Variants Spreading in India Are a Global Concern

As the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths in India continue to mount, public health officials are carefully watching yet another looming threat: the appearance of mutations that could be making the virus circulating there more infectious or more capable of causing severe disease. Scientists believe that the variants of SARS-CoV-2 responsible for this second wave of cases in India already include at least two mutations that make them more dangerous. These mutations are already familiar to COVID-19 experts. One is found in a variant first identified in South Africa, while the other is part of a variant believed to have emerged from California. Researchers believe that these two mutations may, respectively, make it easier for the virus to infect human cells, and to evade the protection provided by immune cells like antibodies. According to the latest data from the public genome database GISAID, 38% of genetically sequenced samples from India collected in March contain the two mutations—scientists have labelled this the B.1.617 variant. “It’s taken us by surprise,” says Dr. Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge who has studied the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants, including the one emerging from the UK, B.1.1.7. that appears to spread more easily among people, and is now the dominant strain of virus causing new infections in the U.K. and the U.S. “The steep, rapid increase in cases is really quite start...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news