Covid-19: this new variant may make you wear the mask for a very long time – Hitek.fr

Since December 2019, the world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic. Health restrictions have emerged around the world and governments are trying to stem contaminations and deaths through various vaccines. The months go by and new variants continue to appear, like this new variant with the mutation more advanced than the others.

a new variant that may affect us soon

Finding mutations in the original virus is not uncommon in a pandemic. The World Health Organization has identified several since the appearance of Covid-19 in December 2019, namely 4 VOCs (variants of concern), including the Delta variant spotted in India in October 2020, and 4 VOI (variants of interest). Unfortunately, the virus continues to evolve and scientists seem to have discovered a new variant of concern. Called C.1.2, this new variant is a mutated version of C.1, a variant detected in South Africa for the last time in January.

Like many other parts of the world, South Africa is also a victim of the Delta variant. C.1.2 has also been found in England, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland. The peculiarity of this variant is that it is the most mutated of all compared to the original virus. As explained a new study led by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases of South Africa and the Kwazulu-Natal Research, Innovation and Sequencing Platform, which is still awaiting peer validation, C.1.2 has a mutation rate of approximately 41.8 mutations per year, which is almost twice as fast as the current overall mutation rate of the other variants.

disturbing changes

More than half of the sequences in C.1.2 have 14 mutations, while additional mutations have been observed in some of the sequences, suggesting that its mutation is not complete. A variant that is gaining momentum, with a steady increase in the number of C.1.2 genomes in South Africa spotted on a monthly basis, from 0.2% of genomes sequenced in May to 1.6% in June , then to 2% in July. An observation which remains however similar to the increases observed for the Beta and Delta variants.

As a bonus, nearly 52% of the mutations recorded in the peak region of C.1.2 sequences were previously observed in other VOCs and VOIs. Mutations N440K and Y449H, for example, allowing certain antibodies to escape, have been observed there. Scientists fear that the combination of these mutations, coupled with changes in other parts of the virus, will help the virus evade antibodies and immune responses, including in patients who have previously been infected with the Alpha or Beta variants. A new mutation that could well succeed the Delta variant, which continues to contaminate many regions of the globe.