Covid-19 variant more transmissible than Delta hits UK: Report
Published on: Monday, July 05, 2021
Photo: AFP
Kota Kinabalu: A Covid-19 strain which worrying research says is more infectious than the world's deadliest and fastest-spreading variant, Delta, has hit the UK with six cases, it has been reported.
The Lambda strain, which was originally found in Peru, has puzzled World Health Organisation scientists after it spread to nearly 30 countries in the last four weeks, news.com.au reported today.
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The strand has exploded in Peru with the new variant making up 82 per cent of cases in the South American country, Cayetano Heredia University's Professor Pablo Tsukayama was reported as saying.
"That would suggest it's rate of transmission is higher than any other variant," he said.
London's Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Welome Sanger Institute director Jeff Barrett supported the professor's claims.
"Lambda has a unique pattern of seven mutations in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells. Researchers are particularly intrigued by one mutation called L452Q, which is similar to the L452R mutation to contribute to the high infectiousness of the Delta variant," he told the Financial Times.
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A report from scientists at the University of Chile, Santiago says there is concerning research that current vaccines are not as effective in neutralising the new strand, news.com.au further reported.
"Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralising antibodies and increased infectivity," they wrote in a pre-paper report published last week.
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