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    Home > Medical News > Latest Medical News > How did the new crown variant strain in the UK be discovered? What does it mean for vaccines?

    How did the new crown variant strain in the UK be discovered? What does it mean for vaccines?

    • Last Update: 2020-12-31
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    new coronavirus variant B.1.1.7, which appears in the UK, has caused panic in Europe. As of December 22, more than a dozen countries in Europe, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Switzerland and Greece, have announced a comprehensive entry ban on the UK.
    In response to the mutant strain, Feng Zijian, deputy director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that from the virus sequence obtained in China, whether it is imported personnel, goods or cold chain products, from various ways to obtain the virus, has not found that China has a variant virus input. He also said that we will continue to pay close attention to closely monitor the activity of the virus.
    first alerted the British side on December 8, according to the Science website. At a routine meeting in the UK on the spread of the pandemic coronavirus, scientists and public health experts saw a shocking chart.
    Loman, a microbiomic genomics scientist at the University of Birmingham, said there had been a surge in cases in Kent, in the south-east of England, and that the evolutionary tree of the virus system in the county's virus sequences looked strange. Half of the cases are caused by a specific variant of SARS-CoV-2, and the variant is located only on a branch of the system's evolutionary tree that extends from other parts. Lohmann says he has never seen a virus system like this evolve.
    less than two weeks after the new strain caused chaos in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. On December 19th British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced tougher new rules on the blockade, saying the new crown strain, known as B.1.1.7, appeared to be more capable of spreading. The news led many Londoners to leave the capital before the new rules came into effect, causing congestion at train stations. On December 20th countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy announced a temporary suspension of passenger flights from the UK. Eurostar trains between Brussels and the British capital were suspended for at least 24 hours.
    scientists are working to see if the B.1.1.7 strain is really better at human-to-human transmission. If it's more propagation, what's behind it? They also wanted to know why the new crown B.1.1.7 strain had mutated so quickly that it had acquired 17 mutations at a time, unprecedented. Andrew Rambaut, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, said he was trying to identify some mutations in the strain in the laboratory.
    B.1.1.7 strain invalidate the vaccine? Zhang Wenhong, director of the infection department at Huashan Hospital, affiliated with Fudan University in Shanghai, responded to the concern on his microblog in the early hours of December 22. "It's unlikely that there will be a mutation that doesn't work for the vaccine before it comes out," he said. Zhang
    explained that there can be no virus evolution without natural selection. Similarly, without the pressure of a vaccine, it is largely unable to naturally screen out strains of the virus that are ineffective against the vaccine. Currently the vaccine produces antibodies against many areas of the S protein, and a single mutation (such as the D614G mutation that occurred last month and the N501Y mutation this time) is unlikely to reduce the vaccine's effectiveness.
    current genomic survey of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) shows that there are a large number of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in the virus. Earlier this year, Li Lanxuan
    team's research proved that mutations in the genome of the new coronavirus have the functional potential to affect the pathogenicity of the virus. The team suggests that vaccine and drug development needs to take into account these cumulative mutations, especially the effects of ancestral mutations, to avoid potential defects.
    the study, published April 19, a team from Zhejiang University reported the functional characteristics of the virus-isolating strains from 11 new corona patients, all of which had at least one mutation. Importantly, when infected with Vero-E6 cells, these virus-isolating strains show significant differences in cytopathic effects and viral load, with differences of up to 270 times.
    researchers around the world are closely monitoring the real-time evolution of SARS-CoV-2, and humans are watching a virus so closely in real time, unprecedented in history.
    so far, the new coronavirus has mutated at a rate of about one to two bits per month. This means that many of the new coronavirus genomes sequenced today are about 20 bits different from those originally sequenced in January, but many smaller variants are also becoming popular. "Because we monitor the genome very intensively, we can see almost every process of variation, " Lohmann said. Why
    scientists have never seen a virus get a dozen bits of variation at a time? They believe this occurs during a long-term infection in a patient that causes SARS-CoV-2 to evolve rapidly over a long period of time, with multiple variants competing for advantage in their bodies.
    one reason to be concerned, says Mr. Lambert, is that eight of the 17 bits are located in the virus's hedgehog protein, two of which are particularly worrying. A protein called N501Y has previously been shown to increase the degree of binding to human ACE2 binds (the entry of viruses into human cells). The other, called 69-70del, causes the loss of two amino acids in the prickly protein, a virus found in some immunodeficiency patients that evades the immune response.
    lucky coincidence that B.1.1.7 is spreading faster than other new corona variants in the UK. Because a PCR test called TaqPath, widely used in the UK, usually detects three gene fragments of a virus. The new coronavirus, with a 69-70del mutation, causes genes that encode the prickly gene to produce negative signals. Hundreds of thousands of such low-cost PCR tests are carried out in the UK every day to help researchers track the B.1.1.7 strain.
    press conference on December 19th, Patrick Valence, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, said the B.1.1.7 new coronavirus first appeared in the virus isolated on September 20th, accounting for 26 per cent of cases in mid-November. The numbers are much higher in the week that begins on December 9, he said. In London, the mutant strain accounts for 60 per cent. Boris Johnson added that a large number of mutations could increase the spread of the B.1.1.7 strain by 70 per cent.
    , a virologist at the University Hospital of Charité in Berlin, said it was too early to say how much spread there was, because there were still too many unknowns. On the one hand, the rapid spread of B.1.1.7 may be accidental. Scientists had previously feared that virus variants that spread rapidly from Spain to other parts of Europe (B.1.177, note: not B.1.1.7) might be easier to spread, but that does not seem to be the case today. Because Spain is a tourist destination, holidaymakers to Spain carry the strain all over Europe. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University, said B.1.1.7 could be a similar situation. Drosten said the new mutant also carries the absence of another viral gene, ORF8, which previous studies have suggested may reduce the virus's ability to spread.
    but the situation from South Africa is worrying. South African scientists sequenced the genomes of the new coronavirus in three provinces where cases have soared: the Eastern Cape, the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal. They determined that the virus was different from the British variant B.1.1.7, but that it also had an N501Y mutation in the prickly gene. Virologists at KwaZulu Natal University say they have found that the variant appears to be spreading much faster. The study first made British scientists aware of the importance of N501Y.
    concern is that B.1.1.7 could lead to more serious diseases. John Ngasson, director of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said South Africa's new crown variant could also have an impact on young people and other healthy people.
    , a virologist at the University of Basel in The United States, agrees, saying the B.1.177 strain from Spain still offers cautionary lessons. British scientists initially thought its mortality rate was 50 per cent higher, but it didn't soar at all, she says, and "the early data were purely confusing and biased".
    the new crown strain with the N501Y mutation, it does make more young people sick because more people are infected. Recent post-Test celebrations in South Africa have become a warmbed for the spread of the new coronavirus. Drosten said the mutated new coronavirus's ability to spread or cause disease has changed from previous versions and needs to be studied in cell culture and animal experiments.
    it could take months to get definitive answers from the lab, but Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, began her research. By taking samples from a patient who had been infected for several months and was treated with recovery plasma, the researchers found that the new coronavirus in his body had a mutation of 69-70del and another mutation called D796H, but the patient had died. In the lab, Gupta's team found that viruses with two mutations were less susceptible to restorative plasma from multiple receptors than wild viruses. 'This suggests that it can circumvent antibodies against wild viruses,' Gupta wrote in a preprint published this month. He also designed a version of a lysovirus that expresses a mutation in the prickly protein, and found that removing it alone doubled the virus's infectious power. He is now conducting similar experiments on viruses that carry missing and N501Y mutations. Gupta said the initial findings should be after Christmas.
    said it was "very difficult" for other countries to impose a ban on flights
    . But it does give countries time to consider measures to deal with travellers from the UK, she said: "I want most countries in Europe to think about it." It
    that scientists believe B.1.1.7 may have spread widely. In a december 20 letter to parliament, Hugo de Jonge, the Dutch health minister, wrote that Dutch researchers had discovered the strain in samples taken from a patient in early December. They will try to find out how the patient became infected and if there were any related cases. William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, says other countries may also have the virus. The UK may just be the first to identify it, as it has the world's most complex SARS-CoV-2 genome monitoring system, which many countries do not have.
    the evolutionary process that led to B.1.1.7 may also occur elsewhere. Kristian Andersen, an infectious disease researcher at Scripps Research, said that with the introduction of the vaccine, the selective pressure on the virus will change, meaning that variants that help the virus grow can be selected. Andersen said the important task in the coming months is continuous monitoring. "Conditions that make B.1.1.7 appear can also occur in other parts of the world," Andersen said. "
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