D614G strain more infectious, wearing a mask or washing hands may not work

 Reporter : Liu Minghuan / Editor : Deming / Publisher : New Tang Dynasty Television

Ref : https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2020/09/26/a102949508.html 

Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA

SARS-CoV-2 (covi, in short, also CCP virus) continues to  pose a huge threat to people's lives and health. Recently, a new study shows that the its mutant strain D614G is more spread, and it may be more adaptable, able to bypass obstacles such as masks and hand washing.

According to the "Washington Post" report, since March, experts in Houston, Texas, the United States have been sequencing the covi genome and recorded 5,085 sequences.

In a paper published on Wednesday (23 September), scientists disclosed the mutant  strain of SARS-CoV-2 called D614G is more infectious. This strain accounted for 99.9% of the second wave of outbreaks in the Houston area.

D614G refers to an amino acid called aspartic acid (D) substituted for an amino acid called glycine (G) in the region of the genome encoding the spike protein.

The researchers found that patients infected with this strain had a significantly higher viral load in the upper respiratory tract, indicating that it is more infectious.

The study pointed out that the mutation increased the number of "spike proteins" of the virus. These "spikes" allow the virus to attach to the infected cell. This increases the ability of the mutant virus to infect cells.

Researchers show that patients infected with the mutant strain had a significant increase in the number of viruses at the time of their first diagnosis.

According to David Morens, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the research results show that as the virus spreads among people, it becomes more infectious. This may affect our ability to control it.

Morens pointed out that the virus may have been upgraded to resist epidemic prevention measures such as hand washing, wearing masks and social distancing.

Morens said, "Wearing a mask and washing your hands are all barriers to transmission or infection. But as the virus becomes more infectious, it is statistically more able to bypass these barriers."

Studies have also shown that certain regions of the "spike protein" (the main target of the covi vaccine currently under development) show several mutations, which may indicate that the virus is changing to escape the body's immune response.

Prior to this, on 6 July, Zhang Wenhong, leader of the Shanghai Medical Treatment Expert Team for the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic and director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, posted on Weibo that an article in the internationally renowned journal Cell showed that 29% of the covi samples appeared. The D164G mutation, especially the virus strain found in the rebound of the epidemic in Beijing, also has this mutation. What impact will it have on the epidemic in China in the future?

He quoted an article on the official account of Huashan Infection as saying, "Some scholars have proposed that the D614G mutation is strongly correlated with disease mortality, but still remains in statistical association analysis." In other words, there are statistics showing that the virus D614G mutation has caused an increase in patient mortality.

As early as April this year, researchers discovered that the mutant D614G of the CCP virus under laboratory conditions can infect more cells on the basis of changing the protease. The virus mutation increases the infectivity by 3 to 6 times.