What do we know about the new strain of the coronavirus that has just appeared in the United Kingdom? Much more contagious than the others, she worries epidemiologists and has immediately led several countries to suspend flights to destination and from the United Kingdom.
Confirmation of the contagiousness of this strain convinced the British authorities to decree a reconfining from London and part of England when several European countries announced the suspension of their air connections with the United Kingdom.
However, according to European Union experts, current Vaccines against COVID-19 remain effective in the face of the new variant. For caution, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on its members in Europe to strengthen their controls.
According to the scientific advisor to the British government, Patrick Vallance, this new variant of Sras-Cov-2, in addition to spreading quickly, could become the “dominant” form. It would have appeared in mid-September in London or Kent (southeast).
However, “nothing indicates for the moment that this new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, but urgent work is underway to confirm this”, according to the chief doctor of England, Chris Whitty.
The new strain bears in particular a mutation, called N501Y, in the protein of the “Spicule” of the coronavirus, the point which is on its surface and allows it to attach to human cells to penetrate them.
According to Dr. Julian Tang, of the University of Leicester, “this transfer N501Y was already circulating much earlier this year outside the United Kingdom, Australia in June-July, in the United States in July and Brazil in April”.
For his part, the director of the Pasteur Institute, Hechmi Louzir wanted to reassure Tunisians by pointing out that generally, “all viruses are subject to mutations which can lead to a new variant and this is the case, of the new variant of COVVI-19 discovered in the United Kingdom”.
Speaking on Express FM, he stressed that this new variant was followed by researchers, and that it does not make the vaccine ineffective.
