A mutated coronavirus strain spreading in Britain is on average 56% more contagious than the original version, scientists have warned in a study, urging a fast vaccine rollout to help prevent more deaths.
The coronavirus causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
The new variant, which emerged in southeast England in November and is spreading fast, is likely to boost hospitalisations and deaths from Covid next year, according to the study published on Wednesday by the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Researchers, focusing on the English southeast, east and London, said that it is still uncertain whether the mutated strain was more or less deadly than its predecessor.
“Nevertheless, the increase in transmissibility is likely to lead to a large increase in incidence, with Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths projected to reach higher levels in 2021 than were observed in 2020, even if regional tiered restrictions implemented before 19 December are maintained,” they said.
The authors warned that a national lockdown imposed in England in November is unlikely to prevent an increase of infections “unless primary schools, secondary schools, and universities are also closed”.
Any easing of control measures, meanwhile, would likely prompt “a large resurgence of the virus”.
This meant that “it may be necessary to greatly accelerate vaccine roll-out to have an appreciable impact in suppressing the resulting disease burden”.
In announcing more stringent lockdown measures over the Christmas holiday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that the new viral strain “may be up to 70% more transmissible than the original version of the disease”.
The discovery of the new strain set off alarm bells worldwide just as more countries began vaccination campaigns to halt a pandemic that has claimed more than 1.7mn lives since it emerged a year ago in China.
Many countries quickly imposed bans on travel from Britain, but EU governments have since begun to relax the restrictions.
Meanwhile, another new variant of the novel coronavirus seems to have emerged in Nigeria, the head of Africa’s disease control body said yesterday, cautioning more investigation was needed.
The news comes after Britain and South Africa both reported new variants of the Sars-CoV-2 (the coronavirus’ official name) that appear to be more contagious, leading to new travel restrictions and turmoil in markets.
“It’s a separate lineage from the UK and the South African lineages,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told an online news conference from Addis Ababa.
The detection of the new variants in Nigeria and South Africa prompted an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week, Nkengasong said.
He said that there is no evidence the new variant is contributing to increased transmission in Nigeria, but cautioned the country does less genomic surveillance than Britain.
The Nigeria CDC and the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria will study more samples, Nkengasong said.
“Give us some time ... it’s still very early,” he said, in response to questions about the variant.
The new variant of the coronavirus that has been spreading rapidly in Britain has been found in Germany for the first time, the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said yesterday.
The infected person flew to Frankfurt from London Heathrow on December 20 to visit relatives and tested positive upon arrival.
Further genetic analysis of the sample at a lab in Berlin has yielded a case of B117, as the variant is known, the southwestern German state’s health ministry said in a statement.
“This is the first known case in Germany,” it added.
The person, who has since developed mild symptoms, was picked up from the airport by car by family members and has isolated at the family’s residence in Baden-Wuerttemberg since then, the ministry added.
Three individuals who have been in close contact with the person have also quarantined, it said.
Denmark has identified 33 infections with the new UK variant of the coronavirus, according to authorities.
The State Serum Institute (SSI), Denmark’s infectious disease authority, said in a report published on Wednesday that the cases had been found in coronavirus tests that were carried out between November 14 and December 14.
Preliminary information did not suggest the 33 people who contracted the variant had any connection to England or had been travelling in other countries, the SSI said.
Singapore has confirmed its first case of the UK coronavirus variant, the city-state said, while 11 others who were already in quarantine had returned preliminarily positive results for the new strain.
All the cases, which were imported from Europe, had been placed in 14-day quarantine at dedicated facilities or isolated upon arrival, and their close contacts had been quarantined earlier.
“There is currently no evidence that the B117 strain is circulating in the community,” Singapore’s health ministry said late on Wednesday.
A man dressed up as Santa Claus waves to children from inside a plastic ball as a protective measure against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), in Ferrol, in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia.
