The highly contagious British variant of COVID-19 is likely to become the world’s most dominant strain, according to a top British molecular biologist – who warned that scientists would be forced to monitor the mutation virus for the next decade.
‘[It] is going to sweep the world in all likelihood, ”Professor Sharon Peacock, head of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, said of the British tribe, known as B.1.1.7, on the BBC’s” Newscast “on Thursday.
Peacock, who runs a network of public health labs, said the variant has already spread to 50 countries – and could change in months or years.
‘Once we get there [COVID-19] ‘whether it mutates itself because it’s virulent – which causes disease – then we can stop worrying about it,’ she said. ‘But I think if we look into the future, we’ll be doing it for years. In my opinion, we are going to do this for another ten years. ”
The tribe was first detected in Kent 2020, in south-east England, and spread to 34 US states from Thursday. At least 932 Americans have been infected with the highly contagious variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Evidence suggests that vaccines work against the strain, which is up to 70 percent more contagious than the original COVID-19 virus – but scientists fear it will develop like the South African strain, which is believed to be more resistant to vaccination.
Peacock’s organization is currently analyzing 30,000 positive cases of the British strain per day, of which 10 per cent are randomly selected for genomic sequencing, which investigates whether the virus mutates.
There are certain ‘special features’ that make virus strains more transmissible, deadly or vaccine-resistant, and the agency is looking into these factors, she said.
Other scientists have also warned that the virus is developing, with an extra mutation in the UK variant in at least 21 cases.
‘The number of rows [of the UK strain] currently low, although improved supervision is underway … There may be more cases, given how high the transfer was. We must continue to vaccinate and expel the transmission, ”said Professor Ravi Gupta, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of Cambridge. said last week.
Scientists around the world are keeping a close eye on new variants that have emerged in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil – and which have now all reached the USA.