The growing optimism brought by the first vaccines against Covid-19 - which are already being administered in several countries and will foreseeably arrive in Spain on

December 27

- has been clouded by the detection of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK.

Last Saturday, the British authorities decided to tighten the restrictions due to this variant, associated with an increase in cases in the south of the country, and several countries, such as the Netherlands, Italy or Germany, have already taken measures to prohibit flights from the Kingdom United.

For now, Spain has announced that it will reinforce the verification control of PCR tests of passengers from the country in airports and ports.

The European Center for Disease Control claims, after conducting a risk analysis, to expand efforts "to prevent and control" the spread of the variant.

In this sense, it asks the Public Health authorities and laboratories to analyze and carry out genomic sequencing of the available samples, so that cases infected by the new variant can be identified.

This requires, according to the report, special monitoring of people from areas affected by the new variant, in order to detect, isolate and properly track any possible infection.

"What has happened is not a cause for alarm, but it is something that should

redouble surveillance and control of transmission,

" says Adelaida Sarukhan, immunologist at ISGlobal, a center promoted by la Caixa.

The worrying thing is not that the virus has mutated, which was to be expected, the specialist continues, but the accumulation of mutations, some of them in 'key' areas of the virus.

The detected variant of SARS-CoV-2 has at least 17 mutations.

Nine of them are found in the protein 'spike' -S-, which allows the virus to 'enter' the cells and to which practically all vaccines in development are directed, since it is one of the main proteins that induce the response immune.

Several of the mutations detected had previously been described in isolation, Sarukhan points out, but this is the first time they have appeared, together, in the same variant.

"It cannot yet be said that we are facing a new strain, because that implies a change in the behavior of the virus and that is still being studied," says Isabel Sola, virologist at the National Center for Biotechnology and head of one of the the 'Spanish vaccines' that are in development.

According to the specialist, it is very important that now it is studied in depth if the variant is really more transmissible, if it is associated with an increase in the severity of cases and if it has any effect on immunity.

The ECDC report points out, in this regard, that at the moment

there is no evidence that the new strain causes more serious disease

.

The British authorities have spoken in the same way, although more studies should be carried out in this regard, because the age of the people affected could influence this variable.

Regarding immunity, Sarukhan points out that "mutations probably have no effect on the usefulness of vaccines."

Although protein S is the target used by vaccines, the reality is that it is a very large protein, with different fragments.

A mutation in one of its parts would not have, in principle, the ability to completely cancel its effect, clarifies the specialist.

In any case, Sola adds, "one of the first things to do is to analyze whether the neutralizing antibodies promoted by the vaccine are capable of acting against the detected variant."

Along the same lines, the ECDC indicates the need to closely monitor possible cases of reinfections, as well as the cases of patients who have received, without success, a therapy with convalescent plasma or monoclonal antibodies, in case the cause was the new variant.

The ECDC also recalls the importance of

"following strict adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions"

, such as the use of masks, maintaining a safe distance or frequent hand washing.

It also recommends that authorities toughen advice to avoid non-essential travel or social activities.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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