South Carolina invents first US case

The state Department of Health said Thursday that the first Covid-19 cases in the U.S. of a new, highly contagious virus strain found in South Africa have been detected in South Carolina.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said the strain, known as B.1.351, was found in two adults with no history or connection to each other. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified health officials in South Carolina late Wednesday that a sample tested at LabCorp is the B.1.351 variant, the Department of Health said Thursday.

The state’s own public health lab later identified a separate case of the same variant in a sample tested Monday, the South Carolina Department of Health said in a statement. Although the stress appears to be very transmissible, it does not make people sicker, the health department said.

“The arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolina that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, the department’s interim director, said in a statement.

Mutated strains of the coronavirus have migrated to the US in recent weeks. Health officials in Minnesota on Monday identified the first U.S. case of a similar variant that was first detected in Brazil. The US has also identified more than 300 cases with another strain first found in the UK known as B.1.1.7, according to recent data from the CDC.

The appearance of these new tribes did not surprise scientists. The US is rapidly trying to increase its surveillance efforts to detect the new strains through genomic sequencing, which may come from abroad or ‘originate from our own country’, said dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the CDC, said last week.

“CDC is early in its efforts to understand this variant and will continue to provide updates as we learn more,” the health agency said in a statement. “CDC’s recommendations to slow the spread – to wear masks, stay at least 6 meters apart, avoid crowds, ventilate indoor spaces and wash hands regularly – will also prevent the spread of this variant.”

Both virus strains found in the United Kingdom and South Africa have similar mutations, but experts believe they have evolved separately. While it is no surprise that the virus mutates, researchers are trying to quickly determine what the changes could mean for recently developed life-saving vaccines and treatments against the disease.

The B.1.351 strain appears to be more problematic than the emerging variant found in the United Kingdom, Drs. Anthony Fauci, White House health adviser, said Wednesday. Fauci said during a press conference that antibodies caused by the vaccine may be less effective at combating the strain, although it still lies well inside the protective pad.

Early findings published in the preprint server bioRxiv, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, indicate that the B.1.351 variant may evade the antibodies provided by some coronavirus treatments and the effectiveness of the current range of available vaccines. can reduce. On Monday, Moderna said the vaccine may be less effective against the B.1.351 strain and that it is developing a so-called booster shot to protect against the variant “out of abundance of caution.”

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a CNN interview on Wednesday that the new mRNA technology used to develop the Modern and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines – the only two so far that obtained emergency permission in the US – can be easily customized to target the variants.

The boost shots do not have to go through the rigorous phase three clinical trials that require thousands of participants, he added.

“You do not have to try a trial of 30,000 or 40,000 people,” Fauci said. “You work with the FDA and you can bridge information from one trial to another. Finally, we are already working.”

Will Feuer of CNBC contributed to this report.