NEW FEARS ON INDIAN VARIANT
No ‘immediate’ plan to place the subcontinent on Ireland’s red list
FEARS are growing that an Indian Covid variant now spreading in Britain may be more infectious and make vaccines less effective.
The ‘concerning’ variant has two ‘escape mutations’ which could help it dodge antibodies.
Ireland’s red list of travel ban countries currently does not include India. A spokesman for the Department of Health last night said it is closely monitoring the situation in relation to the variant. However, it expects ‘no immediate’ change to our quarantine list to include India.
It comes as experts in the UK have called for India to be added to Britain’s red list. Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘India has a higher incidence of coronavirus than many countries on the red list, and there are signs this Indian variant might be more damaging. Looking at the current state of the epidemic in India, and concerns about the variant, I struggle to see any public health reason why India isn’t already on the red list.’
The 73 cases of the Indian variant so far confirmed in England, and the four in Scotland, are understood to be widely dispersed, with no indication of clusters or outbreaks. Official sources say a few cases are being found in individual areas, with many linked to international travel. Officials have currently designated it a ‘variant under investigation’ (VUI) rather than a ‘variant of concern’ (VOC), such as the Manaus (Brazil) or South African variants.
Professor Ravindra Gupta from the University of Cambridge, a government adviser on new and emerging threats in the pandemic, said: ‘This new variant should cause a similar level of concern to the South African one.
‘It has two mutations which could help it escape vaccines and immunity in people who have had coronavirus, and another which could make it more transmissible, although there is no evidence that is happening yet.’
Scientists are testing the variant to see if it can partially evade the protection from vaccines. Officials say there is no evidence for this yet or for it being more transmissible. The mutant Indian virus has become a ‘variant under investigation’ along with six others.
But Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College, said it was likely to be escalated to a ‘variant of concern’. He told BBC Radio 4: ‘I think we should be terribly concerned.’
India has seen soaring Covid-19 rates, with 13.9 million confirmed cases and 172,000 deaths.
Officially named B.1.617, it has the potential to cause chaos if it spreads too far, as was seen with the Kent variant over the winter.
B.1.617 has been described by some scientists as a ‘double mutant’ variant. It has two mutations – E484Q and L452R – which for the first time have been seen in a singular variant. Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said this is ‘causing people to be concerned’.
The worry is that when combined, these two mutations are far more infectious or able to evade immunity from either prior infection or vaccination, as has been shown with the South African and Brazilian variants.
Meanwhile, the majority of people arriving into quarantine in Ireland are coming from a red-listed country. As of April 15, 18 people tested positive for Covid-19, four are probable variants of concern.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee yesterday said an expert group had developed a method of assessing risks by looking at countries where there were outbreaks of Covid-19, where there are new or emerging variants of concern, and where there is a high 14-day incidence rate. This is measured as a rate of infection that is two-and-ahalf times higher than in Ireland, where the rate of infection is currently 120 per 100,000 in Ireland.
She said the advisory group assesses the level of these factors and measures the potential implications of this before referring its information to the Chief Medical Officer, who then makes recommendations to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.