A.30 strain of Delta variant no cause for immediate concern
Sri Lankan expert says strain almost extinct
COLOMBO – Recent media reports that Sri Lanka is on high alert over the A.30 strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not cause for immediate concern, Dr. Chandima Jeewandara, Director, Allergy Immunology and Cell Biology Unit, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, said on Wednesday (3), noting that the lineage has almost gone extinct.
The British scientific journal Nature reported on October 25 that A.30, also termed A.VOI.V2 that was detected in several patients in Angola, the United Kingdom and Sweden, exhibits a cell line preference not observed for other viral variants and efficiently evades neutralization by antibodies elicited by AstraZeneca/Covishield or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination.
Media reports in Sri Lanka earlier this week quoted State Minister of Pharmaceutical Regulation, Channa Jayasumana, as saying that experiments are under way in Europe to prevent the strain from spreading in the upcoming winter season.
“It will be a major issue for European countries if the virus spreads at a time like this. Health officials in Sri Lanka are also aware of the lineage,” Jayasumana told reporters on Sunday (Oct 31).
Dr. Jeewandara, however, said the A.30 lineage was presently not spreading on a global scale, according to available data and claimed the lineage was almost extinct.
Dr. Jeewandara tweeted on Tuesday (2) that out of more than 4.5 genomes deposited on the GISAID database, only five belong to the A.30 lineage: three in Angola, one in Sweden, and one in the UK. The last of these were collected in May/June 2021.
However, he said the lineage comprises an “impressive collection of mutations that is capable of true immune escape” and that it may be going undetected in some locations where testing capacities are limited.
Vaccination still remains the best protection, he said, explaining, “This study is not a suggestion that vaccination is not effective against the variant and getting a COVID vaccine is still the best option to fight the pandemic.”
-economynext.com