A new coronavirus variant has emerged.
It was found that a very sick newborn treated at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC not only has a new variant of the new coronavirus, but also a viral load that is 51,418 times higher than other young patients, according to the Washington Post.
The new variant was recently identified when the researchers sequenced the genome of the baby’s virus, which was treated and repaired in September, reports Ariana Eunjung Cha of the Post.
It is not clear how common or how risky this new variant can be. The database found eight other cases of this variant in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, according to a pre-print study, not yet evaluated by peers, on coronavirus variations in children.
The variant, according to researchers, has a different type of vein protein structure that can make it more contagious.
It is not clear whether this new variant explains the large number of viral particles in the baby’s nose.
“It could be a complete coincidence,” Roberta DeBiasi, head of infectious diseases at Children’s National Hospital, told the Post.
“But the association is pretty strong. If you see a patient who has exponentially more virus and it’s a very different variant, it’s probably related.”
There are still many questions about how the coronavirus affects children
According to national data, children are less likely to have severe cases of COVID-19. Many young children may be less likely to infect other people when they become ill, although the CDC still suggests that everyone could possibly spread the disease.
But researchers do not yet understand the effects of coronavirus on children and infants.
In the past five months, the number of cases of pediatric coronavirus, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, has ‘increased dramatically’.
Severe cases of COVID-19 in children are rare but exist, and have been linked to serious and long-term side effects, including brain damage.
And we do know that some children are more vulnerable than others – the mortality rate of children of color is much higher than that of their white counterparts.
On February 11, 241 children died of COVID-19 and the vast majority were black, Hispanic or American Indian or Native Alaska.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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