World should remain wary of shot-resistant Covid-19 strain
▶ UK is ‘most risky’ country for new mutations as inoculations increase
The Covid-19 pandemic has reached its “most dangerous moment” owing to the threat of a variant emerging that is resistant to current vaccines, a UK scientist said.
The disease could mutate into a strain that can survive the mass vaccination programmes around the world, Prof Graeme Ackland of the University of Edinburgh told The National.
The risk of a vaccine-resistant variant is highest in Britain because the country has a high number of vaccinated people and a high number of infections, he said.
The situation in the UK could become “very nasty, very quickly”, he said.
On Monday, the UK announced plans to use a new technique to test for variants.
On Tuesday, the British Medical Journal published a report that debunked claims that Covid-19 mutates more slowly than other viruses.
It said genome sequencing showed that Covid-19 mutated at a similar rate to Ebola.
Countries around the world are racing to inoculate their populations but many western countries are struggling, with significant problems in the EU.
“The big uncertainty at the moment is whether we get a vaccine-resistant mutant,” Prof Ackland said.
“The coronavirus variants that came out last year had no reason to mutate to become resistant to the vaccine because there was no vaccine.
“Now, because a large fraction of the population is vaccinated, there’s a huge evolutionary advantage for a mutation that’s immune to the vaccine.
“It could get very nasty, very quickly if that happens.”
Prof Ackland is a computer simulation specialist and was part of the Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic group that advised the UK government.
He said the highly infectious UK variant spread quickly because no one was vaccinated at the time it emerged.
“Now there’s a big pressure on the virus,” he said.
“If you think from the viewpoint of coronavirus, what do you want to do to infect people? The best strategy now is to infect vaccinated people. That’s where the evolutionary pressure is on the virus.”
Scientists at Imperial College London are focusing on RNA vaccine technology to allow them to respond quickly if vaccine-resistant strains emerge.
Britain has 468,000 active Covid-19 cases and more than 28 million people have received their first dose of vaccine.
Prof Ackland said that made the UK vulnerable to a strain that was not affected by shots.
“We’re entering the most dangerous time at the moment, where there are still lots of cases in the UK and lots of vaccinations. The UK is probably the most risky place for that happening,” he said.
But he said the authorities had little option but to press on with inoculation campaigns despite the risks.
Prof Ackland said that if a new strain of the disease was resistant to vaccines then it would pose a clear threat to the global population.
“If coronavirus randomly evolves to find a way around the vaccine then it will spread very fast,” he said.
The British Medical Journal report supports Prof Ackland’s thinking.
“Coronaviruses throw up variants all the time,” the report said. “Some countries will be slower than others to vaccinate their populations.
“Covid-19 and its variants will be around for some time and concerns around the protection afforded by current vaccines will continue.”
It suggested that Covid-19 shots would be required “for many years” and that they would need to change as new variants were found, similar to influenza vaccines.
The UK government plans to use genotype assay testing to find new strains. The method could halve the time it currently takes to identify variants.
The authorities in India reported a double mutant variant of the disease this week. On Thursday, virologist Shahid Jameel told the BBC that the strain may “allow the virus to escape the immune system and make it more infectious”.