India is witnessing a sharp increase in infections with the emerging corona virus, "Covid-19", and a new strain of the virus is increasing, so what is it?
How does it affect infection and the effectiveness of vaccinations?
The answers are here, with details on mutations that appear in the Coronavirus.
What is the name of the new breed?
The name of the new strain is "B1617", according to a report on The Conversation.
It is also known as the Indian coronavirus variant, according to several news sites.
And the strain - also known as "variant" - is a version of the virus that includes a group of mutations, which means that every mutated strain includes a set of mutations.
A mutation is a change in the arrangement of the genetic material in the virus, and some of these mutations may not leave a trace in the virus, but some of them may affect its ability to transmit and infection.
And there were previous mutations recorded for the Corona virus, including the English, Brazilian and South African strains.
Is this mutation more contagious?
It is believed that this mutation may be able to spread more easily than previous forms of the virus.
This is due to a mutation it bears called "L452R" (L452R) that affects the spike protein "spike" of the virus, which is the "key" that the virus uses to enter the body's cells.
The mutation that was discovered in California named "B1427" (B1427) contains the same "L452R" (L452R) mutation and it is estimated that it is about 20% more transmissible than the previous form of the Coronavirus that was spreading during the first wave.
Is it more dangerous?
Mutations such as L452R (L452R) that help link do not necessarily lead to more severe disease or make the Corona virus more deadly.
For example, a mutation discovered in California B1427 (B1427) appears to spread more easily, and preliminary research has not found that it is associated with more severe infections or higher viral loads.
The same could be true of the B1617 mutation in India, although this still needs to be investigated.
But a particular concern is the effect a mutation might have on the effectiveness of the vaccine.
The vast majority of vaccines developed against Coronavirus depend on targeting the spike protein.
Since the protein is on the outside of the virus, this is what your immune system often "sees" during infection and thus creates effective antibodies against it.
If the mutations change the shape of the spike protein, these antibodies may become less effective.
In fact, preliminary studies indicate that the L452R mutation can help the virus evade the immune system.
Moreover, B1617 carries a second mutation, called E484Q (E484Q) that also changes the spike protein.
Research indicates that similar mutations (affecting the same region of the spiky protein) may make the virus less susceptible to pre-existing antibodies.
Is India's high casualties linked to this mutation?
According to officials in India, the country's high number of cases is not related to these mutations, as B1617 mutations have not been detected in large enough numbers to determine whether they are directly responsible.
However, this may be due to a lack of data, and several experts have stressed the importance of increasing the virus sequence to obtain a better picture.
In India, more than two thousand deaths due to Covid-19 and about 300 thousand new infections were recorded within 24 hours in one, which is one of the largest daily figures in the world since the beginning of the epidemic, according to official data quoted by the French Press Agency.
The Ministry of Health figures indicate that the number of new infections recorded reached 295 thousand in the last 24 hours, which raises the total number of injuries to 15.6 million in India.
As for the number of deaths, it reached 2023, bringing the total number of those who died from the epidemic to 182,553 people.
In a televised speech on Tuesday evening, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his citizens to make more efforts to confront Corona in order to avoid new isolation measures during a serious health crisis linked to a second wave of the epidemic.
Modi confirmed in his first speech since the surge in infections that India - which has a population of 1.3 billion people - is fighting "a big battle again."
"The situation was under control a few weeks ago and the second wave came like a hurricane," he said.
Viral mutations ... are minor mutations and great risks
Like all viruses, the Corona virus (whose scientific name is SARS-Cove-2) is constantly mutating, and some random mutations allow it to spread further and resist the acquired immune systems and vaccines.
The authors Solein Roy and Tristan Faye say in a report published by the French newspaper "lefigaro" that scientifically speaking, the virus is a genetic material protected by a lipid membrane.
With regard to the Corona virus, this membrane is covered with spicules made of 3 identical proteins that enable it to cling to human cells, and then merge the membranes so that the viral genetic material can penetrate the cell.
As a result, the virus transforms the cell's machinery to produce its own protein and replicate its cells.
However, this process of "reproduction" is not perfect, as a mistake regularly infiltrates the different copies, and most of the time the "variable" virus disappears as quickly as it first appeared, but it succeeds in reproducing and spreading among humans at times.
How do dangerous strains develop?
The authors show that this natural process allows the virus to evolve over time.
Bruno Canard, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research, who specializes in corona viruses, explains that "if the virus does not mutate, it is easy to eliminate it very quickly. Likewise, if it undergoes many mutations, it produces a very large number of incomplete and incomplete copies." Able to reproduce and spread. "
Researchers estimate that the SARS-Cove-2 virus registers about two new mutations per month.
Based on the original strain that was discovered in China, the virus formed during the last period an evolutionary tree that now contains thousands of branches, but only some of them pose a clear danger.
The English, Brazilian and South African strains have received worldwide attention among the rest of the strains. "These strains exceeded the evolutionary framework of the virus that has been observed so far," explains Etienne Simon Laurier, a specialist in RNA viruses at the Pasteur Institute.
These strains are accompanied by dozens of new mutations, and although this is difficult to prove, the hypothesis that the virus replicates every time and for a long time is put forward for people who suffer from weak immunity to the point of accumulating all these mutations, before spreading around the world.
In addition, it seems that some of these mutations give the virus the advantage of spreading very quickly, and have precedence over the rest of the strains, which is what happened with the English, Brazilian and South African strains.
A more contagious mutation
Scientists today are particularly concerned about mutations that can occur in the spike that centers on the surface of the virus.
The spike is considered a weapon of the virus that enables it to penetrate human cells, and it is at the same time its weakness that scientists used to make vaccines, as antibodies in the immune system rush to attach to these spicules and prevent them from entering the cells.
The researchers fear two things, first the emergence of a mutation at the level of the spike that makes the virus more dangerous and more contagious, and secondly, that the immune system - which has already received the vaccine - does not recognize this mutation, and it becomes unable to provide the necessary protection for the body and the vaccination becomes ineffective.
For his part, the French researcher, Etienne Simon Laurier, explains that the more intense the spread of the virus, the more mutations continued, and the great danger that vaccines would not be effective in addressing new random mutations, which means the continuation of the epidemic.