A newborn baby diagnosed with COVID-19 in Washington, DC, was found to have at least 51,000 times more viral particles than other young patients diagnosed with the deadly virus.
What are the details?
According to a Washington Post Wednesday report, experts fail to understand why the unidentified child – who was born in September and later recovered – had such a high viral load, but later determined that the infection was a new one. coronavirus variant seen in several other cases.
The child, according to the Post, was born “very sick”.
“Most infected children barely show symptoms and even those hospitalized tend to have mild cases,” noted the vehicle.
On Thursday, Insider said it was not clear whether this particular variant was more dangerous for children, but stressed that its structure could make it more infectious when compared to other strains.
“It is not clear how common or risky this new variant can be,” noted Insider. “The database found eight other cases of this variant in the US mid-Atlantic region, according to a pre-printed study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, on variations in coronavirus in children.”
The agency noted that the variant’s distinctive type of peak protein structure “may make it more infectious.”
“It is not clear whether this new variant explains the large number of viral particles detected in the child’s nose,” added the vehicle.
“It could be a complete coincidence,” Roberta DeBiasi, head of infectious diseases at the National Children’s Hospital, told the Post in a statement. “But the association is very strong. If you see a patient who has more viruses exponentially and is a completely different variant, it’s probably related.”
DeBiasi added that he was unable to conclude anything about the mutation in just one case, but the Post reported that the researchers found evidence that a “variant with a mutation called N679S may be circulating in the mid-Atlantic region”.
What else?
The Post reported that on February 11, more than 3 million American children had tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began.
“The biggest outbreaks have occurred since mid-November, when cases increased at a rate of 100,000 to 200,000 a week,” noted the vehicle. “But the country’s limited genomic sequencing was concentrated almost exclusively on adults.”
Harvard researcher Adrienne Randolph said the need to expand sequencing is immediate.
“Some hospitals saying that their cases are more serious in children does not mean that, nationwide, this is a problem,” she explained. “But we have to investigate. With new variants, it may be that some of these children have been infected with them.”
Alan Beggs, who specializes in genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital, said the general “take-home message” is that the country is “doing poorly in identifying worrying changes in the evolving virus”.
“This is just another piece of evidence that needs to change,” added Beggs.