Just when the world started thinking that the pandemic may come under control with a vaccine in sight, a newly and more deadly identified strain of the virus has left several countries baffled across the globe. The United Kingdom Government was the first to announce about the highly contagious new variant of the virus that started spreading in England and its adjoining countries. Not only in the UK, similar viruses with distinct variants were also seen in South Africa and have now started circulating in several parts of the world. So far, the presence of the new variant has been reported in countries like Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore
It is believed that the new variant was there since Corona virus was first detected in China nearly an year ago. The World Health Organisation mentioned that as the viruses mutate and change, they reproduce and move through a population something “that’s natural and expected”. The UK variant has been named ‘VUI – 202012/01’ (the first Variant under Investigation in December 2020) and according to researchers, this virus has at least 17 changes of mutation which has resulted in its rapid spread to seven other countries. While the South Africa 501.V2 variant has a large number of changes and spread of the variant till now is only confined to South Africa according to genomic surveillance. More than fifty countries have so far banned travel to and from the UK over concerns of the new variant; the UK has restricted travel from South Africa.
This new corona virus strain is considered to be 70 per cent more transmissible than the old variant and is affecting people particularly in the age group of 30-60. According to Susan Hopkins from Public Health England, there is more evidence on the transmission for the UK variant and they have been examining it in great detail with different academic partners. A lot is still to be learnt about the South African variant. But Susan confirmed that the variant will be controlled and the vaccine which is already developed should be effective.
Until yesterday doctors confirmed that the new strain has so far not been found in India. However, the country reported its first case with the return of seven UK returnees when their samples were found positive in NIMHANS (Bengaluru), CCMB (Hyderabad) and in NIV (Pune). The government has confirmed that all of them have been kept in single room isolation.
The new variant of the virus is seventy percent more transmissible than the old one. Very little is known about the severity of the recent disease. But if the virus is more transmissible, it means it is more dangerous and people are more vulnerable to it. Therefore, as the new variant is spreading rapidly, the need of the hour is to stick to the rules. One should keep washing their hands, wear a face mask, restrict their movement and maintain social distancing to combat the spread of the virus.
The writer is a Research Fellow, ICWA.