He coronavirus began to show mutations in its structure and scientists are alert to know what impact it may have on the pandemic. The variant that emerged in Great Britain is a 70 percent more contagious, and a group of Brazilian scientists who studied this new strain he thinks he knows why.
These mutations arose in various parts of the world how South Africa or the same Brazil, with a new strain in Rio de Janeiro. Yesterday, the Malbrán Institute confirmed that cases of the Brazilian variant were detected in Argentina and reported that it circulates actively among the population of our country.
The new strain that emerged in the UK It is already present in more than 20 countries while the world’s airports remain closed for flights from England with the intention that it does not enter their territories. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, determined a new quarantine to contain the number of infections.
What makes the new strain more contagious?
As explained by the Foundation for Research Support in the State of Sao Paulo (Fapesp) spike protein is responsible for increasing the contagiousness of the new strain, that is, the tips of the crown that give it the name of coronavirus of the Sars-cov-2 that produces the Covid-19.
These protruding parts of the main structure of the virus would have greater facility or « molecular intensity » to connect to the receptor of which they adhere in human cells, called the ACE2 receptor, which is used by the virus to settle in the body and cause disease.
The foundation noted that « the increase in the molecular interaction force of the new lineage is caused by an already identified mutation at amino acid residue 501 of the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 called N501Y, which gave rise to the new variant of the virus. «
« We found that the interaction between spike protein of the new strain with the N501Y mutation (british strain) is much higher than that presented by the first virus lineage that was isolated in Wuhan (China), « said Geraldo Aleixo Passos, a researcher at USP and one of those responsible for the study.
British strain
This Tuesday it was announced that in England one in 50 people was infected with coronavirus, as explained by the British Government. Currently, a quarter of the population over 80 years old has already received the Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus by being the first country to approve and begin to inoculate people.
The United Kingdom intensified its national vaccination program this week, coinciding with an increase in cases due to a new highly contagious strain, with the introduction this Monday of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, which is added to that of Pfizer / BioNTech.
In Argentina, the new strain has not yet entered that was generated in the British territory, but the one that comes from Rio de Janeiro was identified and it is under study what new characteristics it has to determine the evolution of the pandemic.
He coronavirus registers 1,662,730 infections so far in the country and 43,785 deaths throughout the national territory after almost ten months of pandemic. Yesterday 13,790 cases were reported, which was the highest number in two months, and 151 deaths were added.