Fears over reinfection levels of latest Brazil virus variant
BETWEEN 25% and 61% of people who have previously had coronavirus are susceptible to reinfection from the worrying P1 variant, research from the Brazilian city of Manaus has suggested.
A study on the P1 Brazilian variant among people living in Manaus found potentially high levels of reinfection, and that the variant was more transmissible than the original pandemic strain.
British experts have cautioned that the study cannot be used to predict what may happen in the UK, and say it does not suggest that vaccines will not work against the variant.
It comes as the number of weekly registered coronavirus deaths in England and Wales has fallen by more than a quarter to the lowest level since the start of the year.
Deaths involving Covid-19 among people aged 80 and over have also fallen more steeply in recent weeks – as vaccines are rolled out – than those among younger age groups.
To date, six cases of the Manaus variant have been found in England and Scotland, with experts having narrowed down one missing case (part of the six) to 379 households in the southeast of England.
According to the latest study, from organisations including Imperial College London, Oxford University and the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, blood studies suggest more than 67% of people in Manaus may have had Covid by October 2020.
There was surprise, then, when the Amazonian city suffered another huge wave of coronavirus at the start of this year, so experts sought to find out why. They found that the proportion of
Covid cases featuring the P1 variant grew from zero to 87% in about eight weeks. P1 was found to be 1.4 to 2.2 times more transmissible than other variants in Manaus, and was found to evade 25% to 61% of protective immunity from previous infection.
Dr Nuno Faria, reader in viral evolution at Imperial, told a briefing: “If 100 people were infected in Manaus last year, somewhere between 25 and 61 of them are susceptible to reinfection with P1.”
He said more work was needed on patterns that might occur in other countries, adding: “We know that vaccines are effective and they can protect us from infection and from disease and death. This is a period to be optimistic about the future. The more we know about the virus, the better we’re able to protect against it and I think there’s no concluding evidence to suggest at this point that the current vaccines won’t work against P1.”
Sharon Peacock, executive director and chairwoman of the Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, and professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said: “We should be optimistic and pushing on with vaccination so that we can get a high level of immunity in our population, starting with the most vulnerable...
“The numbers of cases [of the Manaus variant] in the UK are very low at the moment.
“At the present time I don’t believe there’s any threat to our vaccination strategy, or likely effectiveness.”