RIO DE JANEIRO, April 14 (Reuters) – The P1 coronavirus variant in Brazil, behind a deadly COVID-19 surge in the country in Latin America that has raised international alarm, is changing according to scientists in ways that make it better in enables antibodies to evade. studying the virus.
Research conducted by the public health institute Fiocruz into the variants circulating in Brazil has found mutations in the peak region of the virus used to enter and infect cells.
According to the scientists, the virus can increase the resistance to vaccines – which focus on the protein – with serious consequences for the severity of the outbreak in the most populous country in Latin America.
“We believe it is another escape mechanism that creates the virus to evade the response of antibodies,” said Felipe Naveca, one of the authors of the study and part of Fiocruz in the Amazon city of Manaus, where the P1 variant apparently originated. .
Naveca said the changes appear to be similar to the mutations seen in the even more aggressive South African variant, against which studies show that some vaccines have significantly reduced its effectiveness.
“This is of particular concern because the virus is still evolving in its evolution,” he added.
Studies have shown that the P1 variant is as much as 2.5 times more contagious than the original coronavirus and more resistant to antibodies.
On Tuesday, France suspended all flights to and from Brazil in an effort to prevent the spread of the variant, as the largest economy in Latin America is increasingly isolated.
The variant, which quickly became dominant in Brazil, is thought to be a major factor behind a massive second wave that brought the country’s death toll to more than 350,000 – the second highest in the world behind the United States .
The outbreak in Brazil is also increasingly affecting younger people, with hospital data showing that more than half of all patients in intensive care were in March 40 or younger.
For Ester Sabino, a scientist at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo, who led the first genome sequence of the coronavirus in Brazil, the mutations of the P1 variant are not surprising, given the rapid rate of transmission.
“If you have a high transmission, as you currently have in Brazil, you increase the risk of new mutations and variants,” she said.
So far, vaccines, such as those developed by AstraZeneca and Sinovac of China, have proven effective against the Brazilian variant, but Sabino said further mutations could jeopardize it.
“It’s a real possibility,” she said. (Reporting by Pedro Fonseca, writing by Stephen Eisenhammer Editing by Daniel Flynn and Steve Orlofsky)