According to the findings of the latest study, a new variant of the Covid-19 virus, C.1.2, has been detected in many countries across the globe including South Africa. This new variant is highly transmissible and more importantly, can elude the protection provided by the vaccination.
The new variant was first discovered by scientists at KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) and National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa in May earlier this year. Since then, this virus has spread to a number of countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, New Zealand, Switzerland, Portugal, England and Mauritius.
According to a report on the medRxiv.org repository pertaining on 24th August, the mutation C.1.2 is considerably different from C.1 which means the new strain poses a grave challenge to researchers. The report which is still to go through the process of peerreview says that C.1.2 may have more sequences than what is reported till now from South Africa and other parts around the globe.
The number of genomes of C.1.2 is consistently rising at a steady pace with the increase of 0.2% in May to 1.6% in June and to 2% in July. This increase is similar to what researchers had witnessed in the case of Delta and Beta variants of the Virus in South Africa. The study also states that with a mutation rate of 41.8/year, the C.1.2 is mutating at double the speed of theaverage global rate associated with other variants.
The reason behind the high rate of mutation is the spike protein changes in the virus and this accelerated mutation made this variant significantly different from its original form that was first discovered in China in the year 2019.
Talking to the Press Trust of India (PTI), Upasana Ray of CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata said that owing to numerous mutations in the spike protein, this new variant can easily bypass the protection provided by the vaccination. This means it has the potential to become a serious challenge for countries if allowed to spread unchecked. Therefore, it’s important for people to observe Covid-19 appropriate behavior so that spread of the virus can be contained effectively. The mutations in Covid-19 virus are dangerous as they make it evade the immune response of the body including in patients who have developed antibodies related to the other variants of the virus.
