- A coronavirus variant found in Uganda has undergone a similar change as a rapidly spreading variant in the United Kingdom and the United States.
- The variant in Uganda, called A.23.1, is ‘of potential biological importance’, GISAID said.
- The likely impact of their mutations is not yet clear.
A coronavirus variant has been detected in Uganda that has a mutation similar to the rapidly spreading variant in the UK, and has quickly become the most common coronavirus in the capital of Uganda, Kampala, a pre-print study reported Thursday.
The emerging coronavirus variant has evolved separately from the variant in the United Kingdom, which is of the “B lineage” and is called B.1.1.7. The variant in Uganda is of the “A lineage”, and is mentioned in the study A.23.1.
According to Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Flu Data (GISAID), A.23.1 is a lineage itself that has a number of variants of ‘potential biological concern’, of which the variant in Uganda is an example.
From June to October 2020, only 25% of the viruses were in the Kampala region, where lineage A viruses exist. By December 2020, 49 of the 50 consecutive samples from the Kampala region belonged to the new A.23.1 lineage, the authors said.
More than 39,000 Ugandans are known to be infected with COVID-19, and according to the World Health Organization, 328 people have died.
It is important that the variant in Uganda has genetic changes in the ear protein, the part of the virus that uses it to infect human cells. The authors identified a certain mutation, P681R, which may mean that it acts in the same way as the variant in the United Kingdom, B.1.1.7, which has a similar mutation in its vein protein, P681H.
The variant in the UK is thought to be 30-50% more contagious than the original virus and spreads rapidly around the world, including in the US, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that it will be the most common coronavirus variant word. by March.
The scientists also identified changes in a portion of the protein known as a target for the immune system.
The article has not yet been scrutinized by other experts in a peer review, and the likely impact of the variant in Uganda is not yet clear.
A.23.1 variants have been detected according to GISAID in other countries as well as Uganda, including the United Kingdom, Rwanda, Canada and Cambodia.
In the United Kingdom, A.23.1 is being formally investigated by Public Health England because it has the E484K mutation – the mutation found in the variant in South Africa, which scientists say helps evade antibodies.
There are 43 reported cases of A.23.1 in the UK, according to Public Health England (PHE). The A.23.1 variant with E484K differs from the variant in the United Kingdom, B.1.1.7, which apparently also developed into an E484K mutation and was designated by PHE as a “variant of concern”. There were 22 people in the UK who according to the PHE were infected with the B.1.1.7 variant that has an E484K mutation.