Scientists have warned that a new mutant strain of coronavirus which is spreading rapidly in the UK and many other parts of the world could infect children more easily.
The emergence of the mutated SARS-CoV-2 variant, which scientists say is up to 70% more transmissible than previous strains the UK, has prompted some countries to shut their borders with Britain and pushed large areas of the country into severe restrictions over the New Year time.
Scientists from the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), which are tracking the variant, said it had swiftly become the dominant strain within the south Britain and could do the same across the country.
The New Strain Is Dangerous For The Children
As earlier, the strains of coronavirus found it difficult to contaminate children than adults with one explanation being that children have fewer of the doorways called the ACE2 receptor the virus uses to enter a human body’s cells.
According to Professor Wendy Barclay, from Nervtag and Imperial College London, the mutations to the virus seemed to be making it easier to breach those doorways.
She explained, “Therefore children are equally susceptible, perhaps, to the present virus as adults, and thus given their mixing patterns, you’d expect to ascertain more children being infected.”
But experts don’t believe that the remake has any greater threat to children’s health.
New Covid Strain – What We Know So Far!
According to the study by the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the mutated coronavirus strain, that’s been spreading in the UK, is 56% more contagious than other strains.
The variant was identified in genomic surveillance by COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK), a group that analyses genome sequencing data from the UK.
COG-UK is that the largest contributor to the worldwide Covid-19 database GISAID.
The variant is the results of multiple mutations in the spike protein of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, also as mutations in other genomic regions of the RNA virus. Preliminary analysis suggests that it’s more transmissible than previously circulating variants.
COG-UK identified one of these mutations as “N501Y”, in an area of the spike protein that binds to a key protein in the human cell, the ACE2 receptor. This was an indication that the alterations may, theoretically, result in the virus becoming more infectious.
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Symptoms Of The New Covid Virus Variant
Besides the three commonest symptoms of COVID-19 like fever, dry cough and loss of sense of smell and taste, 7 other symptoms are related to the new strain of coronavirus.
Following are the signs you ought to be careful for.
– Fatigue
– Loss of appetite
– Headache
– Diarrhoea
– Mental confusion
– Muscle pains