Tag Archives: virus mutations

Vaccines may curb new virus mutations; teens use soft drinks to fake positive COVID-19 tests

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

COVID-19 vaccines may be curbing new virus mutations

Along with preventing illness and deaths, COVID-19 vaccines may also be curbing the “rampant evolution” of the new coronavirus by limiting new mutations that allow it to evade antibodies, researchers believe. As part of a larger study, they closely analyzed gene sequences in virus samples obtained from 30 COVID-19 patients who had not been vaccinated and 23 vaccinated individuals with so-called breakthrough cases of COVID-19. In particular, they looked at genes associated with the spike the virus uses to break into cells. The spikes are targeted by the antibodies unleashed by current treatments and vaccines. The more the spike mutates, or changes, the less likely the antibodies will be fully effective. Compared to virus samples from unvaccinated patients, samples from vaccine breakthrough patients showed significantly fewer mutations on the spike, researchers from data analytics company nference reported on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The more people get infected, the more opportunities the virus has to mutate as it makes copies of itself inside the body. It is possible that by suppressing the number of copies made in vaccinated people, the chances to mutate are reduced as well, the authors suggest. “This study presents the first known evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are fundamentally restricting the … escape pathways accessible to SARS-CoV-2,” they concluded.

Some teens are faking positive COVID-19 tests

Teenagers have figured out how to use soft drinks to fake a positive COVID-19 test, and the authors of a new study warn schools and other groups to be aware. As of July 1, videos uploaded to social media under the search term #fakecovidtest, featuring young people applying various liquids to rapid antigen COVID-19 tests, had been viewed millions of times, according to the British news website inews.co.uk. That report, and others, prompted University of Liverpool researchers to study the effects of applying soft drinks and artificial sweeteners to the test swabs. All four sweeteners tested produced negative results on rapid COVID-19 tests, as did spring water. But 10 of 14 soft drinks produced positive or weakly positive results, with no apparent link between the test results and the soft drinks’ ingredients, the researchers reported on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Since March, UK schools have asked pupils without symptoms to test twice weekly, the authors note. A positive test can result in an entire class having to isolate at home. Based on their findings, they advise, testing “should be performed first thing in the morning, prior to the consumption of any food or drinks, and supervised where feasible.”

Rapid COVID-19 tests are generally reliable

Used properly, “rapid antigen” COVID-19 tests that give fast results are generally reliable, a new study suggests. The tests have “good” sensitivity, or the ability to correctly identify patients who are infected with the coronavirus, and “excellent” specificity, or the ability to correctly identify people who are not infected, UK researchers reported in The Lancet Microbe. Unlike gold-standard PCR tests, which involve complex lab equipment and highly trained staff, rapid antigen tests can be processed on the spot. The researchers evaluated six commercially available tests. Compared to PCR, their accuracy at diagnosing infection varied from 65% to 89% and rose above 90% in patients with high viral loads. The researchers warn that correct use of the tests is essential, which may happen less often with members of the public than when administered by trained healthcare workers. Although PCR-based testing is more accurate, they conclude, the rapid tests’ “versatility in terms of cost and portability,” and their usefulness in disrupting transmission from infected asymptomatic individuals who would otherwise go undetected “could outweigh the risk of missing positive cases.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Megan Brooks; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Latin America’s pandemic tragedy as death toll nears one million

By Anthony Marina

PISCO, Peru (Reuters) -Hellen Ñañez has suffered enough tragedy for a lifetime. The Peruvian 28-year-old mother has mourned the death of 13 close relatives since the pandemic struck last year: uncles, cousins, a grandfather. Now her dad is fighting for his life.

On a recent day in a dusty cemetery in the Pacific port town of Pisco, Ñañez visited the graves of relatives lost to COVID-19.

“The truth is, I don’t have any more tears,” said Ñañez, who dropped out of studying psychology to work and help pay her father’s medical bills. “This is taking away our family. It’s taking away our dreams, our tranquility and stability.”

Ñañez’s story is a grim reflection of the tragedy unfolding in Latin America, a resource-rich but politically volatile region of some 650 million people stretching from Mexico to the near-Antarctic southern tips of Chile and Argentina.

The region has recorded 958,023 coronavirus-related fatalities, a Reuters tally shows, some 28% of the global death toll. It is set to hit the 1 million mark this month, which will make it the second region to do so after Europe.

But unlike wealthier Europe and North America, Latin American nations have lacked the financial firepower to keep people from sliding deep into poverty; underfunded healthcare systems have strained and inoculation programs have stalled.

Regional leaders from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador have come under fire for their handling of the pandemic, while a string of health ministers have been fired.

“We Peruvians are dying, Mr. President. We are dying every day,” Miriam Mota, a relative of a coronavirus patient in Lima told Reuters, beseeching the country’s leader, Francisco Sagasti, to do more to help bring the crisis under control.

“There are no vaccines. There are no intensive care beds. There are no medicines. Please, for humanity’s sake, help us!”

Peru has officially confirmed 1.85 million COVID-19 cases and some 64,000 deaths, but that toll could be three times as high in reality, experts say. The country’s national death register has linked 171,000 deaths to the virus.

‘PEOPLE ARE FED UP’

Latin America’s crisis has been driven by regional juggernaut Brazil, which has recorded the most deaths globally after the United States and where right-wing President Bolsonaro has long railed against lockdown measures and backed unproven cures.

The emergence of virus mutations in the country, including the more transmissible P1 variant, has been linked to the severity of Brazil’s outbreak. It has also driven surges in infections in neighboring countries, including Uruguay and Bolivia.

Now there are signs that the pandemic, which has torn through regional economies and driven a spike in poverty, will have a longer-term ripple effect, stoking unrest, rattling industries and driving voters at the polls.

Colombia has been roiled by deadly protests over a now-shelved tax reform and poverty; Chile is moving towards a sharp tax hike on copper miners; Peru’s polarized presidential election race is being led by a socialist teacher who is a political outsider.

“People are fed up and obviously tired of everything that has happened lately,” Paula Velez said in front of a burned-out police station in Colombian capital Bogota, set on fire in the protests.

‘I DON’T WANT TO LOSE HIM’

Public health experts say Latin America has suffered an outsized hit from the pandemic, both in terms of health and growth, rattling fragile economies with high debt levels, steep inequality and where many work in less secure informal jobs.

Unlike North America, Europe or Asia, the region has also lacked the high-tech infrastructure to rapidly develop or manufacture vaccines.

A deal to produce the Oxford University-AstraZeneca Plc COVID-19 vaccine by firms in Argentina and Mexico has been stalled by manufacturing hold-ups, and many Latin American countries are reliant on insufficient supplies of Chinese and Russian vaccines.

A cottage industry has developed for wealthier Latin Americans to travel to Florida and Texas to get their shots. But for the less affluent, that is not an option.

“I have been looking for work for a year and a half and I can’t wait for my vaccine,” said Rio de Janeiro resident Marco Antonio Pinto, who like others in the city was disappointed last week when an immunization center quickly ran out of vaccines.

“They are playing with the people, thinking that we are animals. We aren’t animals: we are human beings. We pay taxes. We pay for everything,” he said.

Back in Peru, Ñañez is now fighting to save the life of her father, who has been in the intensive care unit of a hospital for more than two weeks, receiving medicine to reduce the ravages of the disease and on a mechanical respirator.

Ñañez, who has a two-year-old child, has turned to making soap at home and selling it on the street or in shops in Pisco, a coastal town set amid arid desert landscapes.

She said her bank loans had run dry and the family had incurred enormous debts of some 100,000 soles ($26,500) to buy medicines, medical oxygen – and funeral expenses. While hope was low, she was determined to battle for her dad.

“I’m not going to lose him. I don’t want to lose anyone else. My dad can’t leave me,” Ñañez said, sobbing, outside the hospital where she has come to check on the health of her father, who is in a coma.

“I have been standing here for 17 days in front of the hospital and I know that he is going to make it. I do not think that life can be so unfair if it has taken so much from me and now it also wants to take away my father.”

(Reporting by Anthony Marina in Pisco; Additional reporting by by Herbert Villarraga and Javier Andres Rojas in Bogota, Enrique Mandujano in Lima and Sergio Queiroz in Rio de Janeiro; Writing by Marco Aquino and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien)