The variant is also 1. 4 to 2. 2 times more transmissible than the virus strain discovered in the Amazon basin.
Manaus, the Brazilian town where the variant was first detected in December
The Brazilian variant evades “natural immunity” in up to 61% of other people who have already had Covid-19 and causes reinfection, scientists revealed today.
The variant, discovered in six Britons, is also between 1. 4 and 2. 2 times more transmissible than the general strain of the virus discovered in the Amazon basin.
But the findings, based on the influence of the variant in Manaus, the Brazilian city where it was first detected in December, would probably not imply its possibility of spread in the UK.
Researchers from Imperial College London, Oxford and the University of Sao Paulo published a draft of the first genomic and epidemiological study of the Brazilian variant known as P1.
Lead researcher Dr. Nuno Faria of Imperial said that in Manaus, the variant was able to evade between 25 and 61 percent of antibody coverage in other people who in the past had had the main strain of Covid-19 in the city, leaving them vulnerable. to reinfection with P1.
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About 25 countries have reported cases of P1. Today, those countries have been found to include the US, Canada, France, Germany and Spain, countries that are not on the UK’s Red List, from which access is banned to everyone still residing in the UK.
In Mayanaus, the variant went from 0 cases to 87 cases in eight weeks, causing a second peak of Covid-19 between November and January.
Reacting to the research, Professor Sharon Peacock, director of COG-UK, the UK’s genomics consortium, said UK-related effects “have yet to be determined”.
She said: “Most of the [Covid-19] illnesses in the UK are caused by the B1. 1. 7 [Kent] variant, which we can vaccinate unlike the vaccines we have lately. We deserve to be positive and continue this [vaccination program. “].
He added: “At the moment, I don’t think there is any risk to our vaccination strategy or its likely efficacy. “
The researchers said the P1 variant gave the impression of being transmissible in the same way that the South African variant was also observed in small numbers in the UK.
However, at this level it was a question of whether P1 was more transmissible than the dominant Kent variant, or whether its ability to escape herbal immunity, as observed in Manaus, would also hold true for Britons who had acquired herbal immunity from the Kent variant. .
A separate study by the Office for National Statistics found that more than 29 percent of Londoners allegedly tested positive for antibodies in the month to mid-February, the highest rate in the country.
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