- Chinese researchers have put online on Monday the first results of a study in which they believe that the coronavirus has a greater degree of mutation than previously thought.
- They also believe that some of these mutant strains currently circulating in Europe could be much more virulent than the original virus.
- A publication to read with caution, recommend several researchers contacted by 20 Minutes . The study has not yet been validated by the scientific community, which agrees rather that, if many mutations exist, Covid-19 would not be more pathogenic.
“We opened Pandora's box, and, oh surprise, the little virus escapes all control, no vaccine is possible at this mutation rate. "I can't see how you can think of getting a vaccine against a virus that has already mutated thirty times in such a short time!" These comments from Internet users on Facebook follow the publication on Monday of a new Chinese study on the coronavirus, the results of which were relayed by various scientific sites. An article by Trustmyscience, entitled "Covid-19: the virus has already mutated into more than thirty different and distinct strains according to Chinese researchers", has thus been widely shared on social networks.
The study was also relayed by the South China Morning Post, an English-language daily newspaper published in Hong Kong, with the headline: "A Chinese study reveals that the ability of the coronavirus to mutate has been largely underestimated."
The research work was carried out under the aegis of Li Lanjuan, a well-known Chinese epidemiologist and researcher at the University of Zhejiang (a province in eastern China). His team identified 33 mutations of the coronavirus in 11 patients chosen at random in Hangzhou, in the Zhejiang province, but who all had a link with Wuhan, the city from which the Covid-19 pandemic started.
There would thus have been many more variants of the coronavirus in circulation than what was admitted until now, established the team of Chinese scientists: "It makes the virus much more dangerous than one might think." One of these strains, for example, seems to generate 270 times the basic viral load. This means that a person infected with the latter produces 270 times more virus than with the weaker strain, "explains the site Trustmyscience.
"Less virulent strains in Washington State"
"SARS-CoV-2 has acquired mutations capable of substantially modifying its pathogenicity," explains the study. And this pathogenicity would be higher in Europe than in the United States: "The deadliest mutations in Zhejiang patients had also been found in most patients in Europe, while the least virulent strains are the predominant varieties found in parts of the United States, like Washington State, "reports the South China Morning Post.
Finally, and this is what worries Internet users, the fact that the virus mutates into as many different strains in such a short time (the tissues were removed from eleven individuals infected between the end of January and the beginning of February) would imply that the medical response must adapt and differ from region to region to remain effective: "The development of drugs and vaccines, although urgent, must take into account the impact of these accumulated mutations", concluded the team of scientists. "Some of the mutations observed could indeed make a vaccine less effective if they were not taken into account," said Chao Jiang, one of the study's authors, contacted by Newsweek magazine .
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The study is available on the medRxiv.org preprint service, which itself specifies: “Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peers. They should not be used to guide clinical practice or health-related behaviors. »However, as Bastien Castagneyrol, an INRA researcher reminded us at 20 Minutes :« What is happening at the moment is that the articles are put online before the proofreading stage. The authors make work available to the public that they consider successful, but it is work that has not yet been evaluated by the scientific community. This is not the final version to be trusted. "
François Renaud, CNRS researcher at the laboratory "infectious diseases and vectors: ecology, genetics, evolution and control", contacted by 20 Minutes , also plague the rapid sharing of these studies since the Covid-19 pandemic: "We only discover what it is, it is far too early to draw conclusions about this new virus. We are losing science, because it takes years to validate a study. "
"All living things are changing"
On the content of the study, the researcher wants to be, here too, very divided: "Of course that viruses mutate, everything alive is in mutation, otherwise, we would not be there!" Everything around us, the trees, the birds, is the result of mutations. And if the sea didn't have millions of viruses, it would only be an infamous broth. This study, which reduces the human being to a cell culture, is too caricatured and does not demonstrate that the virus is more virulent. There are multiple combinations possible. "
"This is a laboratory study, a description of possibilities, it does not deal with the way in which the virus moves in the human population where many factors apply at the same time", also explains Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading (England), on the site sciencemediacentre.com.
Marie-Paule Kieny, virologist, vaccinologist and research director at Inserm, referring to the figures from GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data), replies in the same way: "There are indeed a very large number of circulating strains, but nothing convincing indicating a change in pathogenicity. "
Regarding research on the vaccine, François Renaud recalls that “researchers are not idiots. They will select the portions of the virus that cannot mutate. The conserved, so-called sensitive, parts of the virus. They are looking for a way to block them before they enter the cell. "And to conclude:" What the virus wants is not to be as virulent as possible, or to kill its host, is to be able to be transmitted. If we think back to myxomatosis, the virus specific to rabbits, we remember that the initial strain, very virulent, was unexpectedly replaced by a strain that was not very virulent. Hoping that the Covid-19 will follow its example.
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