A mutant form of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa is indeed more transmissible, but at the moment it does not appear to cause a more serious disease, said an infectious disease expert who is helping to advise the country’s health minister. parents.
The South African virus variant, known as 501Y.V2, has raised serious concerns, and the strain has already been described as more infectious than the COVID-19 virus identified at the beginning of the pandemic. In South Africa, it quickly became dominant in the country’s coastal areas. That said, experts at the moment are confident that existing COVID-19 vaccines must still be effective against mutant strains.
“We have seen data on viral loads being higher in patients who have the variant,” said Ian Sanne, an infectious disease doctor and member of a panel of scientists who are advising the health minister in South Africa, he told Bloomberg. “The variant is more transmissible, the second wave has been substantially impacted.”
Although it is more transmissible, it does not appear to cause more serious illness at the moment, he added.
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Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, also spoke about the emerging variants, including a separate one identified in the United Kingdom, during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday morning.
He said he was not surprised to see new strains of the virus and warned that a more deadly one could emerge than COVID-19.
“It is possible that you see more pathogenic strains appear, that cause more serious diseases or bind more strongly to certain receptors. Many people seem to be surprised by the virus mutation, but the reality is that we have had the virus for a year – it’s more or less when you start to see the appearance of new variants. “
Gottlieb’s comments came just days after he warned that the South African strain could “prevent” other countermeasures, including drugs with antibodies.
“The South Africa variant is very worrying now because it looks like it can avoid some of our medical countermeasures, particularly antibody drugs,” said Gottlieb when speaking to CNBC’s Shepard Smith on Tuesday.
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Gottlieb stressed that immediate vaccination is essential amid the worrying strain, which has already been identified in Austria, Switzerland, Japan, France, Zambia and the United Kingdom
“The vaccine may become an obstacle against these variants, which are really taking hold in the United States, but we need to speed up the pace of vaccination,” said the former FDA chief.
Fox News’s Kayla Rivas contributed to this report.