Is the Delta strain mutated again?
Is the Delta strain mutated again? Up to now, 45 virus subtypes related to the Delta strain have been found in the world, and AY.4.2 is one of them. This subform contains two mutations. Is the Delta strain mutated again? Is the delta strain mutated again? 1
After the delta strain in Covid-19 became the global mainstream transmission strain, researchers noticed another subtype AY.4.2. The proportion of cases infected with this subtype in Britain is increasing, which is suspected to be more infectious than Delta.
Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genome Project at the Wellcome Sanger Institute of Cambridge University, and Francois Looks, director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London, said that AY.4.2 was 1% to 15% more contagious than the Delta variety.
According to the Financial Times, Ba Looks was quoted as saying that AY.4.2 may prove to be the most infectious coronavirus variant since the outbreak, and may be upgraded to "the variant under investigation", which also means that the World Health Organization will name it with a Greek letter.
Up to now, 45 virus subtypes related to Delta have been found in the world, and AY.4.2 is one of them. This subform contains two mutations, Y145H and A222V.
Scott gottlieb, former director of the US Food and Drug Administration, wrote on Twitter on October 17: "We need urgent research to determine whether this' Delta+'is easier to spread and whether there is partial immune evasion."
Barrett of Cambridge added that relevant research is underway: "Although this (AY.4.2) may make the current situation more difficult, it does not in itself explain why the number of cases in the UK has been increasing recently." Barrett also believes that using the word "Delta+"will cause confusion and should be avoided.
Despite the high vaccination rate, the number of new cases in Britain continues to rise every day. On October 18th, Britain reported that 49,156 new people were positive for the virus, a record high since July. The average number of newly confirmed cases in the past seven days is 16% higher than that in the previous week.
Previously, another subtype of Delta was called Delta+,which has spread to dozens of countries. It is a subtype of Delta first discovered in India, and the main difference is the mutation named K417N. The Indian Ministry of Health quoted research as saying that Delta+is more contagious than most COVID-19 varieties, and it is easier to combine with lung cells, and may be resistant to the therapy used to treat COVID-19.
Colin Angus, a British public health policy modeler and analyst, said that K417N mutation was also found in some sub-variants of Covid-19 Alpha, but they were less competitive than other Covid-19 variants. Is the delta strain mutated again?
According to New York Post' s report on the 2th, US health officials said on Wednesday that a new highly contagious delta strain was found in the United States.
British health officials revealed that this new variant AY.4.2 is also related to more and more new cases in the UK, and this variant is being closely monitored in the UK. Some experts say that its infectivity is suspected to be 1% to 15% higher than that of Bedelta virus.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), confirmed at a press conference on Wednesday that AY.4.2 has been discovered in the United States.
Valensky admits that this new variant "has attracted some attention in recent days". She said that this new variant was found in the United States, but so far it has not been associated with any surge in cases or confirmed cases in the United States. She also said, "At present, there is no evidence that the change of AY.4.2 will affect the effectiveness of our current vaccines or treatments, and we will continue to follow up."
Rochelle Valensky Source: Foreign media
She added: "In the United States, Delta strain is still the main variant, and at present, more than 99.7% of cases in this country are caused by Delta variant."
A CDC spokesman said that AY.4.2 is "very rare" in the United States, and "less than 1 cases" have been found so far, accounting for less than .5% of the sequenced cases. The CDC has not confirmed which state in the United States found AY.4.2
Scott Gottlieb, former director of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), tweeted about this variant last weekend, calling for "urgent research to find out whether this new variant is more contagious" or "partial immune escape".
According to the Financial Times, experts say that AY.4.2 seems to be 1% to 15% more contagious than the original Delta variant.
British health officials said last week that they were closely monitoring AY.4.2 after the latest data showed that 6% of COVID-19 cases in Britain were related to this new variant. AY.4.2 has not been classified as "under investigation" or "variant to be concerned about" in the UK.
experts said that there is no indication that AY.4.2 will become the main variant, and it is unlikely to change the current epidemic situation.
Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the BBC on Wednesday: "Finding new variants is of course important for monitoring, but this does not mean that new variants will replace Delta variants."