British coronavirus variant ‘on course to sweep the world’, says geneticist

LONDON – A variant of the coronavirus that first originated in the UK, and has since been identified in more than 50 countries, could become the dominant form of the virus worldwide, according to the head of the British genetic observation program.

“The new variant has swept the country and in all likelihood it will overcome the world,” said Professor Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium.

“In the future, I think the key is going to be if something (a variant) is particularly problematic with the vaccines,” she told the broadcaster’s podcast Newcast.

The group headed by Peacock was formed in April 2020 and brings together highly respected experts and institutes to collect, track and analyze genomes of the virus as part of the UK pandemic response. To date, it has traced the genetic history of more than 250,000 samples of the virus.

In September 2020, the consortium first detected the more contagious variant of the virus, called the ‘British variant’, and formally known as ‘B1.1.7’ in Kent in south-east England by retrospective analysis of virus samples.

Viruses mutate all the time, but experts worry when a virus mutates to become more transmissible, as in this case, or more deadly. The higher infection rates associated with the variant identified in the UK are likely to lead to more hospitalizations and unfortunately more deaths; consequently, it has become a priority to contain it.

The variant spread rapidly in the south east of England and London and has now become the dominant tribe in the United Kingdom. It has also been detected in more than 50 countries, and health authorities have scrambled to isolate cases, although it is believed that this more virulent strain is already widely circulating.

It is difficult to know the exact origin of the mutation, and given the work of the consortium it is likely to find new variants in the UK (other countries that have pre-genome sequencing of the virus, such as Denmark and South Africa, have also variant discovered). Peacock, who is also a professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said she believes the order of coronavirus variants is needed for at least ten years.

To date, there have been more than 107 million cases of coronavirus and more than 2.3 million deaths worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Apart from the variant of the virus first seen in the south east of England, two new variants appear in a group of cases in the cities of Liverpool and Bristol that scientists are now monitoring.

The Bristol variant has been identified as a ‘variant of concern’ by Britain’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group.

Peacock said that although the mutation variant was a source of concern, the variant seen in and around Bristol was in ‘areas and in very low numbers’, with only 21 cases detected so far.

“It is inevitable that the virus will continue to mutate, but as far as it is concerned, the B1.1.7 variant that we have been distributing for several weeks and months is starting to change again and get new mutations, which virus in terms of immunity, and the effectiveness of vaccines, ‘she added.