Evidence is growing that a troubling variant of the coronavirus discovered in India is more transmissible than the variant first detected in Kent and which fuelled the UK’s second wave of infections and spread around the world.

Three new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are raising concerns about possible heightened spread and severity of COVID-19.

Guardian (UK) It comes amid reports that Public Health England figures to be released on Thursday could show that the number of cases linked to the variant have tripled in a week. The i newspaper reported that scientists on the Sage advisory committee would hold an urgent meeting on Thursday to discuss the threat.

Meanwhile, researchers at Imperial College London analysed more than 127,000 swabs taken between 15 April and 3 May in England, and found that while coronavirus case rates had halved compared with March, the variant of concern known as B.1.617.2 and found in India could be spreading faster than the “Kent variant”, at least in London.

In the latest findings from the React study, the Imperial team recorded 115 positive tests and identified the variant for 26 of them. The majority, 24 cases, belonged to the variant detected in Kent at first, the B.1.1.7. But out of the three positive tests sequenced in London, two were the variant of concern from India. Neither of the people who tested positive for the variant reported travelling in the previous two weeks.

The numbers are very small, but have raised further concerns that the new variant is able to spread more swiftly than B.1.1.7. In a preprint released on Thursday, the scientists write: “The fact that we observed B.1.617.2 at a similar, or higher, frequency to the long-established B.1.1.7 lineage in London suggests that B.1.617.2 may be more transmissible than B.1.1.7 in the populations where the two viruses are currently circulating.”

Prof Paul Elliott, director of the React programme at Imperial, said: “It seems to be circulating, at least in London, and it is at least as transmissible as the Kent variant. We need to understand more about it.”

The findings come as Prof Tom Wenseleers, at the University of Leuven, who worked closely with UK scientists on the spread of B.1.1.7, said the Indian variant of concern could be 60% more transmissible than the former.

“Based on the rapid rise of B.1.617.2 in both India, among cases exported from India, and among cases without a travel history in the UK, and the fact that in all these places B.1.617.2 outcompetes the Kent variant in terms of relative representation, I would conclude that it is likely that this Indian variant of concern does have a growth advantage over the Kent variant,” he said.

It is unclear what might be driving any advantage, but the variant might be more contagious, have a longer infectious period, or partly evade immune defences, Wenseleers added. It will take more detailed epidemiological models and better data to confirm exactly how transmissible the Indian variant is.

Public Health England designated B.1.617.2 a “variant of concern” on Friday and acknowledged that it was at least as transmissible as B.1.1.7 in the UK.

Scientists have warned that the sharp rise in cases of the “India variant” could jeopardise the country’s roadmap out of lockdown. Genomic surveillance data from Wellcome’s Sanger Institute, which excludes swabs from recent travellers and surge testing, suggests that about 6% of coronavirus sequenced in England in the month to 24 April belong to B.1.617.2.

On Wednesday, Boris Johnson said that the government intended, on 21 June, to lift guidance on working from home, the earliest date at which nearly all restrictions could be lifted as step four in the roadmap. He told MPs: “We’ll wait until we’re able to say that with more clarity a bit later on because we must be guided by what’s happening with the pandemic.”

Despite concerns over the B.1.617.2 variant, the React study findings are encouraging. Across England, prevalence of the virus has fallen to about 1 in 1,000 people, a level not seen since August last year; however, case rates are twice as high in participants of an Asian heritage compared with white people.

According to the study, the vaccine programme has weakened the link between infections and hospitalisations and deaths. Meanwhile the epidemic is shrinking in all regions, with the exception of south-east England, where there is a hint that cases have started to rise. “We need to keep a close watching brief to see if prevalence starts increasing further in this region and if so whether that is localised to specific areas,” Elliott said.

===============================================

Egypt has received a batch of more than 1.7m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax initiative, reports Reuters

Egypt received its first Covax delivery of 854,000 AstraZeneca doses at the start of April. It has also received several batches of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, bringing the total number of vaccine doses delivered to 5m, the health ministry said.

Egypt, with a population of just over 100 million, is trying to contain a third wave of Covid-19 infections and the government has put in place some restrictive measures until 21 May, shortening opening hours and banning large gatherings.

Some 2.7 million people have registered online with the health ministry to receive a vaccine. Egypt had officially confirmed 240,927 coronavirus cases including 14,091 deaths as of Wednesday.

Officials and experts say the real number of infections is far higher, but is not reflected in government figures because of low testing rates and the exclusion of private test results.

========================================================

China offers support for vaccine intellectual property waiver plan

Meanwhile in China, the commerce ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, has said Beijing supports a proposal by the World Trade Organization for an intellectual property protection waiver on Covid-19 vaccines to enter the consultation stage.

Supporters of the plan say it will strike a blow for the equitable distribution of vaccines, while pharmaceutical companies and some other governments opposed the idea, saying it would not solve global inoculation shortages.

British and EU officials have been sceptical about the usefulness of the US proposal to waive patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, while saying they are prepared to discuss it.
“China supports the WTO’s proposal on IP exemptions for anti-epidemic materials such as the Covid vaccine to enter the text consultation stage,” Gao said at a news conference in Beijing, report Reuters.

“China will work with all parties to actively participate in consultations and jointly promote a balanced and effective solution,” he said.

==================================================

Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine chief has blamed a rigid drug approval system for a slow inoculation campaign that is relying on only one approved shot. Taro Kono, the minister in charge of vaccines, took responsibility for the public frustration with the vaccine distributed system but also said the approval process was a disadvantage in an emergency.

“Even though we are in a state of crisis, we’re still using the same rules to approve vaccines that we do under normal times,” Kono said in a TBS television interview broadcast on Wednesday, report Reuters. “In the wake of this corona situation, the administration needs to change.”

The government aims to inoculate most of its 36 million people over the age of 65 by the end of July. To reach that vaccination target, the government hopes to deliver about 1 million shots a day, about three times faster than the current pace.

Japan approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in mid-February, two months later than in the United States. This delay, along with a host of logistical problems, has meant Japan has inoculated just 2.9% of its population, the lowest rate among wealthy countries.

About 75% of Japanese are dissatisfied with the vaccine rollout and Japan had the lowest rates of approval of government handling of the pandemic among six major economies in a survey by global consultancy Kekst CNC released on Wednesday.

================================================

IN KENYA

AFP this morning have a despatch from the Metropolitan Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. There, the hospital has just installed a brand-new oxygen production unit that is capable of producing up to 600 litres of the gas per minute.

Metropolitan CEO Kanyenje Gakombe said the hospital accelerated plans to produce its own oxygen after supplies were squeezed to the limit during the height of the third wave, fanned by the variants of the coronavirus first detected in Britain and South Africa.

A plant technician installs the final phase of a newly commissioned oxygen plant at Metropolitan Hospital in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images

At the peak of Kenya’s third wave of Covid-19 in March, hospitals – buckling under the strain of the virus – saw their oxygen reserves fizzle out. Since then, they have been scrambling to increase capacity, fearing the nightmare scenario currently unfolding in India due to oxygen shortages.

“The reserve dwindled, it decreased to the point where we were collecting oxygen 24/7,” recalled Gakombe. At one point “we were down to six hours of reserves and that was a very, very worrying situation.”

The grey-haired doctor admits that in his 27 years at the helm of the 150-bed private institution that targets the middle class, he had rarely worried about the oxygen supply which was “something we took for granted”.

Dr Kanyenje Gakombe gives an interview at Metropolitan Hospital in Nairobi. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images

But where a typical patient uses “two to 15 litres” of oxygen per minute, a Covid patient requires “up to 60 litres”, he said. “We wanted to make sure we were self-sufficient, not dependent on third parties to provide us with the oxygen we needed,” he said.

Several other private hospitals in Nairobi, like the MP Shah facility, have also set up or expanded their own production units.

“We have received several requests for different facilities,” said Jeremy Gitau, co-founder of the Emergency Medicine Kenya Foundation, which helps Kenyan hospitals equip themselves with oxygen distribution systems.

Meanwhile the government launched a call for tenders at the beginning of March to supply 16 counties with oxygen, and has urged the repair of numerous production units that are “no longer working”.

Thousands of Cambodians go hungry in strict Covid lockdown zones

Sarah Johnson and Vutha Srey in Phnom Penh report for us this morning on the plight of Cambodians going hungry in strict lockdown zones:

Tens of thousands of Cambodians are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups that the government and the UN are being too slow to act.

The south-east Asian country had recorded one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but infections have climbed from about 500 in late February to 20,695 this week, with 136 deaths.

A three-week blanket lockdown in the capital, Phnom Penh, was lifted last week but more than 150,000 people are still living in designated red zones in cities across Cambodia, forbidden from leaving their homes other than for specific medical reasons. Many have been living under the country’s most restrictive lockdown measures since mid-April and have not been able to work or get food, medicine and other necessities for weeks.

“This is a humanitarian crisis for the people involved,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “For those stuck at home without enough food or medical support, this is a government-created crisis. There’s a way to deal with public health concerns that does not require people to go hungry.”

========================================

Christopher Knaus

The aged care sector in Australia has warned the government to drastically improve its vaccine rollout to aged care staff before winter, saying it is vital that workers be “given priority and vaccinated quickly”.

Advocates have also warned that people with a disability, including group home residents and those in regional areas, are still missing out on their Covid-19 vaccinations.

The health department announced on Thursday that almost 2.9m Australians have been vaccinated, including about 279,986 in aged and disability care.

But the department’s daily data releases do not give specific figures on the vaccination of either the aged care workforce or those in disability care, two areas where the rollout is lagging badly.

Leading Age Services Australia, a peak group for aged care, has warned the government the rollout has been too slow for critical aged care staff.

Chief executive Sean Rooney said his organisation has been “disappointed with the timeliness and comprehensiveness of the responses to the issues raised by the Department of Health”.

“We welcome the extended rollout since the beginning of May, especially for residents,” he said in a statement to the Guardian. “But it is vital that the aged care workforce is given priority and vaccinated quickly, particularly as we head into winter.

Moderna vaccine clears next hurdle for approval in South Korea

A quick snap from Reuters here that the second of three South Korean expert panels has recommended approval for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, based on its safety and efficacy in phase three trials in the United States, the drug safety ministry said.

After the pharmaceutical panel’s backing, the next step is review by a third panel, before the ministry makes a final approval decision.

Russia records first case of variant first detected in India – reports

Russia has recorded its first cases of the variant of COVID-19 first found in India, Kommersant newspaper reported today, citing authorities in the Ulyanovsk region.

The regional branch of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said it had recorded 16 cases of the variant among Indian students at Ulyanovsk State University, which is some 700 kilometres (435 miles) east of Moscow.

Reuters report that Dilyar Khakimov, an official at the watchdog, told Kommersant that the students had been put in self-isolation and were under medical observation.

Deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova had previously said the country had not recorded any cases of the variant.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year was being classified as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.

The post UK Authorities Concern Over New COVID Variant, World Virus News appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.