LONDON – The dominant variant of coronavirus in the UK is becoming more resistant to vaccines, scientific experts warned.
Two leading UK scientists warned on Wednesday that the virus variant first identified in Kent acquired the same E484K mutation in its spike protein that makes the South African variant so worrying for the experts.
Public health officials are keeping two emerging UK variants under surveillance. The first of these two homemade variants was found mainly in Bristol and the southwest, where experts confirmed 15 cases, with six more in other parts of England. The second variant is located in Liverpool and the Northwest, with a set of 42 confirmed cases so far.
Sharon Peacock, executive director and president of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), told POLITICO in an interview that this is a “major concern” because it mutation has been linked to immunity to vaccines and reinfection in South Africa.
“Our homemade variant is developing this mutation on several occasions, probably through a process of natural selection,” she said. “If the virus takes advantage of a specific mutation, it is likely to persist in the population and expand. This is becoming a major concern in the country ”.
Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said “it is not surprising” that the Kent variant has evolved in this way and that it will happen elsewhere as well.
“When you get this variant, it becomes slightly more likely to look different for the immune system, so we need to be aware of that,” said Vallance. “We need to stay on top and continue testing the vaccine’s effects in this situation.”
Peacock said the UK government’s approach to border controls, which will become stricter as of Monday, is “good overall” because it tests people after arrival, as well as sequencing the genome of positive cases , will allow the UK to understand how the virus may be mutating in other parts of the world.
But she warned that strict border controls will not offer full protection to the British population because “there is a likelihood of variants in the UK not related to border control”, as is happening in Bristol.
Help others
The consortium led by Peacock offers sequencing of the entire genome of coronavirus samples to the National Health Service and the British government. British experts are sequencing 27,000 genomes a week, but that number will continue to rise, she said, while British experts are also sharing their tools and data in an attempt to increase the capacity of other countries.
Peacock said a total of 26 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa have already been involved in the UK’s work, although she declined to name any. “The building blocks for being able to do the sequencing exist in many places with good resources,” she said.
The president of the consortium added: “It is a question of how you form a network, and it really has to do with cooperation and collaboration, and sewing the entire system, from the patient to the test, through the generation of the sequence and then back to health public. It is quite a complicated business to set up. “
The entire sequencing process, from the moment a COVID-19 patient is tested, to the interpretation of the sequencing data, currently takes about five days at the SANGER Institute in Cambridge and a little longer at regional laboratories. “We are constantly working on our response time right now,” said Peacock. “For an effective outbreak investigation, you really need to have the test to respond in 36 hours,” she said.
This article is part of POLITICALpremium policy service from: Pro Health Care. From drug prices, EMA, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and more, our expert journalists keep you on top of the topics that drive the health policy agenda. The e-mail [email protected] for a free trial.