MUTANT FEAR
Brazil variant could ‘reinfect 60% of Covid sufferers and be twice as transmissible’, studies warn
THE BRAZILIAN variant could reinfect people who've already had Covid - and be twice as transmissible, scientists have warned.
Early data from the city of Manaus - where the variant emerged - suggests the variant has various extra capabilities.
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But it's unclear if this would apply to any other country - such as the UK, where six cases of the variant have been detected so far.
Health officials are desperate to clamp down on the variant before it spreads further, using surge testing in South Gloucestershire where two cases in the same household were found.
Research by the University of São Paulo, in collaboration with British universities, shows the variant, called P1, is between 40 per cent and 120 per cent more transmissible.
Data published in the pre-print paper also shows that people who have previously had Covid may not be immune to catching the new Brazilian variant.
An estimated 20 to 60 per cent of people who have recovered from the disease are “susceptible” to getting sick again with P1.
The variant also appeared to have a higher death toll in those who caught it in Manaus.
But scientists say it's unclear whether the higher mortality was simply a coincidence, and that it might be because the city’s hospitals have been struggling.
A leading scientist in the UK said she was not concerned the Brazilian variant would threaten the vaccine programme in the UK - as suggested by other experts.
Cases of P1 are growing rapidly in Brazil after it was blamed for the second wave in Manaus.
Dr Nuno Faria, from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Imperial College London, said around 70 per cent of people in Manaus had antibodies in October of 2020 - one of the highest found levels in the world.
So scientists were keen to investigate why a second wave was growing so rapidly, given it was expected a large proportion of the population had some form of immunity.
P1 was discovered in the first cases in December of last year, roughly one month before it came into existence.
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“We looked at how rapidly P1 overtook the other lineages and found the proportion of P1 grew from 0 per cent to 87 per cent in about eight weeks”, Dr Faria told journalists at a Science Media Centre briefing.
He said the mutations on P1 are linked with “increased transmissibility and immune evasion”.
“We found P1 can evade 25 to 61 per cent of protective immunity elicited by previous infection with non P1 lineages.
“In other words, if 100 people were infected with Manuas last year, between 25 and 61 of them are susceptible to reinfection by P1.
“We caution however, that our results from Manus should not be generalised to other epidemiological contexts.”
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The ability for P1 to escape some antibodies in the immune system also makes it a possible threat to vaccine efficacy.
Asked whether P1 has a higher mortality rate, Dr Thomas Mellan, a research associate at Imperial involved with the study, said: “We do find that in Manaus, a somewhat increased relative risk of mortality associated with P1.
“However, to emphasise, this is in the context of Manaus, where there was substantial healthcare failure, so we really can’t generalise whether that increased risk of mortality will be the same if P1 does substantially take hold in other areas.”
Hospitals in Manaus reached breaking point in January while treating a fresh wave of Covid patients.
Local media reported severe oxygen shortages, in some cases leaving whole wards without any oxygen - which could have resulted in the deaths of people with the P1 variant.
Dr Mellan said this was “not something we can disentangle” in research.
It comes after other preliminary research from Brazil found patients with the P1 mutation have a viral load ten times higher than with other variants.
And state health secretary Dr Cabeto claimed the new strain can double the length of time patients suffer the most serious symptoms.
But a British professor leading genetic sequencing of variants in the UK said although the findings were “important”, their relevance to the UK was unknown.
Prof Sharon Peacock, director of COG-UK, said: “These are very interesting and important findings from Brazil, but how they relate to the UK is yet to be determined.
“The numbers of cases in the UK are very low at the moment at the present time.
“I don't think there is any threat to our vaccination strategy or effectiveness.”
She added: “The response we have taken in the UK has been brisk, it's appropriate but vigorous. Public Health England are investigating the six known cases infected with P1, to look at their contacts.”
HUNT FOR MORE CASES
It comes after experts claimed that the discovery of P1 in the UK could slow down the vaccine rollout and lifting of lockdown.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College, told Times Radio: “The way I think about it is it’s a bit like, and I think about the effect that the Kent variant had on us, it just slowed everything up because suddenly things started to get a little bit worse again, and you know the end seemed a little bit further away.”
He also said the new strain could also make jabs "less potent".
Professor Graham Medley, who sits on the Sage group that advises the Government, said the PM will have to balance the risk posed by the evolution of new variants with the need to reopen the economy and end damaging restrictions.
He told the BBC: "It is a variant of concern, but we are going to be faced with these in the next six months as we move towards relaxing measures.
"There are going to be challenges on the way and there is always a risk that we might have to go backwards, and that's what nobody wants to do is to actually open up and then have to close down again.”
But Boris Johnson vowed that his lockdown lifting would still be "irreversible" despite the threat of the Brazil variant.
Health bosses have identified six cases of the Manaus mutation in the UK - three in England and three in Scotland.
Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, admits there could be more cases going undetected.
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Only around 20 per cent of positive test swabs in England are sequenced to see what variant they were caused by
Dr Barrett told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme said as the “capacity for sequencing continues to go up we could be capturing a larger fraction of all the infections”.
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