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The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has different genetic signatures. Particular mutations may differ from each other, e.g. in contagiousness. They are also likely to cause a different – lighter or more severe – course of COVID-19 disease. Is it because of the mutation of the virus in Italy the death rate is much higher than in other countries?
Viruses evolve and grow extremely fast. Changes in their genomes can occur within several seconds. It is the same with the coronavirus, which has been spreading around the world for several months.
– Each virus has certain genetic variations. So far, as far as I remember, five genotypes have been found in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but the fact that a given pathogen has some new genotypes does not mean that we are dealing with a separate virus – he explains in an interview with Medonet dr hab. Tomasz Dzieiątkowski, a virologist from the Medical University of Warsaw.
In early March, the National Science Review, published by the University of Oxford, published the work of a research team from China, which, after analyzing 103 samples taken from patients with SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, concluded that this virus has evolved into two main types, marked with the letters “L” and “S”. The L type is more widespread (approx. 70%) than the “S” type (approx. 30%), but the “S” type appeared earlier. It is evolutionarily older and less aggressive, while the «L» strain is easier to transfer. While the differences between the two identified types of virus are not significant, and research by Dr. Xiaol Tang and his team has yet to be confirmed, scientists agree that the coronavirus is genetically diverse.
More on this research: Two strains of the coronavirus. It will be more difficult to fight the disease
The ECDC (European Center of Disease and Control) report on March 2 states: “Differences in the viral structure of RBD may contribute to differences in the infectivity, permeability and severity of COVID-19 disease”.
“The virus that infected the first patient was certainly less contagious than the one circulating around the world today,” said Dr. Daniel Scott-Algara of the Pasteur Institute in Paris in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya.
Could the Italian scenario have anything to do with the mutation of the virus?
According to prof. Miłosz Parczewski, who spoke with “Rzeczpospolita” in Poland an epidemic can develop according to two scenarios: German or Italianprecisely because of the existence of different mutations in the virus. It is likely that “the one from Germany has a slightly different genetic signature, it is less virulent” – claims the researcher, emphasizing at the same time that this is only a hypothesis. There is still no data that would give a clear answer.
– In order to investigate it, it is necessary to isolate the virus, as did the Polish team of prof. Pyrcia **, and sequencing his genome. Italy has not succeeded so far, so we do not know what variants are circulating in this country. The situation in Italy is not due to a more “virulent” strain of the virus, but rather the inefficiencies of the Italian health system and some of the negligence that Italians made at the very beginning of the epidemic – says Dr. Dzieścitkowski.
In Italy, death rates are as high as anywhere else in the world. According to the latest data, more than 9 percent have already died there. coronavirus patients. Germany is at the other extreme – the mortality rate at the moment is less than 0,4 percent. In China, it does not exceed 4 percent so far.
A variety of factors can affect these differences. Example? «In Germany, only 16,8 percent. cases are people over 60 years of age, while in Italy there are as many as 54 percent in the same age group. sick »points out Tomasz Bendyk, PhD student at the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, specializing in molecular virology (” Polityka “). Conclusions that can be certain are likely to emerge only after the pandemic has passed and the exact balance of cases and deaths is known.
** Prof. Krzysztof Pyrć from the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University, together with his team, isolated the virus from the Polish “patient zero”.
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