Srinagar: In a new worrisome development, two individuals in Kashmir have tested positive to Coronavirus’ newly mutated strain, discovered in the United Kingdom recently.
Dr. Bilquees Shah, Nodal officer for COVID-19 at JLNM hospital told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that two male patients from Kashmir have been tested positive for new COVID strain that was first reported in the United Kingdom.
“The duo male patients are residents of Habak and Soura respectively,” she said, adding that both the patients are travellers.
Officials said that people whom they contacted with so far will be isolated while the two positive cases have been admitted at JLNM hospital.
Pertinently, nearly 90 cases of new UK COVID strain have been found across India so far
Why is this variant causing concern?
Three things are coming together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily:
- It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus
- It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important
- Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase the ability of the virus to infect cells
Does it make the infection more deadly?
There is no evidence to suggest that it does, although this will need to be monitored.
However, just increasing transmission would be enough to cause problems for hospitals.
If the new variant means more people are infected more quickly, that would in turn lead to more people needing hospital treatment.
Will the vaccines work against the new variant?
Almost certainly yes, or at least for now.
All three leading vaccines develop an immune response against the existing spike, which is why the question comes up.
Vaccines train the immune system to attack several different parts of the virus, so even though part of the spike has mutated, the vaccines should still work.
Vaccine escape happens when the virus changes so it dodges the full effect of the vaccine and continues to infect people.
This may be the most concerning element of what is happening with the virus.
This variant is just the latest to show the virus is continuing to adapt as it infects more and more of us.
With inputs from BBC