Once the first confirmed mutant strain in South Africa was discovered, it was listed as the primary prevention and control strain by countries around the world, and it is reported that from November 24, South Africa reported the discovery of the new variant strain in at least 9 countries and regions such as Botswana, Belgium, Israel, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Hong Kong.
The Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health of the Hong Kong SAR Government announced on November 29 that as of 00:00 on the same day, there were 3 new confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Hong Kong, all of which were imported cases. One of the confirmed cases was infected with the new variant strain of the new coronavirus, Olmi Kerong. So far, the number of cases of infection with the Omikejung variant in Hong Kong has increased to 3.
Recently, many places in the world have successively appeared "Omi kerong" mutant strain infection cases, due to the suspicion that it is more contagious, many countries have issued travel bans. Are existing vaccines effective against the "Omikeron" strain? Experts from many countries expressed their views on this.
British scientist Andrew Pollard said existing vaccines should be able to resist new strains, but the specifics will have to wait until more research data are available in the coming weeks.
German virologist Ulrike Protze said that the new strain may speed up the spread of the new crown virus, and the public should be vaccinated as soon as possible to strengthen the needle to enhance antibody levels.
German immunologist Sanda said that the vaccine currently produced still has a partial effect on the new strain, and the public should choose to continue to be vaccinated.
Amon, director of the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that people are still unclear about the spread of this mutant strain, the protection of vaccines, the risk of repeated infections, etc., and at this stage, preventive measures must be proactively taken to buy time.
Zhong Nanshan: The harm of "Aomi Kerong" will take some time to judge
How do domestic experts view the harm of "Omi Kerong"? Yesterday (28th), Zhong Nanshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, responded to this. He said that from the current situation, the "Omi Kerong" variant strain spreads quickly and has been endemic in South Africa and other regions, and it will take a while to judge the harm of "Omi Kerong", and it will not take a relatively large action now.
Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering: Molecular genetic testing has found that it has more variation points at the receptor binding site, but how harmful is it? How fast does it spread? Will it make the disease worse? And is there a need for vaccine development for it? Judging by the circumstances, it is too early to draw conclusions.
Zhong Nanshan said that the harm of the Aomi Kerong mutation still needs a period of judgment and needs to be paid attention to at any time, but it will not take a relatively large action now.
Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering: What still needs to be paid attention to is the prevention and control of personnel from relevant places in South Africa.
Li Lanjuan: China is neither careless nor panicked
Why should Aomi Kerong pay close attention? How harmful is it? Is the current vaccine in China effective against this mutant strain? The reporter interviewed Li Lanjuan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases.
Data chart Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Zongzhi
Q: What does it mean that the World Health Organization has identified the Omicron variant as requiring close attention?
Academician Li Lanjuan: The World Health Organization recently held a meeting to discuss the new variant of the virus B.1.1.529 in South Africa, which was listed as "worthy of attention". B.1.1.529 was first detected on 11 November in Botswana, a neighbouring country to South Africa. According to available virological analysis data, 90% of COVID-19 infections in South Africa's Gauteng province may already be this mutated strain, and it "probably already exists in most provinces of South Africa". The time from B.1.1.529 to becoming an endemic dominant strain in some provinces of South Africa is less than half a month, indicating that the Omicron strain has a higher transmission efficiency in the population, and it is based on this that the World Health Organization identified the Omicron strain as a strain that needs to be paid close attention to, which means that the World Health Organization believes that it may have higher transmission, or increase the risk of severe illness, or reduce the effectiveness of current diagnoses, vaccines and therapies.
Q: At present, how harmful is the Omicron mutant strain, can it be clear?
Academician Li Lanjuan: At present, there are fewer harmful studies and reports on The Omicron strain, the World Health Organization has identified the Omicron strain as the purpose of paying close attention to the strain, and also recommends that countries strengthen the sequencing, monitoring, and epidemiological tracking of Omicron. Virus mutation is an objective law, the spike protein of the coronavirus is the key protein that mediates the virus into human cells, and it is also the main target molecule of vaccine design, the virus in order to adapt to the environment and the human body, better survive, mutation and even evolution, it is possible to enhance the spread and virulence, increase pathogenicity, but the mutation may also weaken the pathogenicity on the contrary, and the harm of the Omicron variant strain needs a period of observation to evaluate.
Q: The Omicron strain spreads rapidly and has been found in 9 countries and regions, including South Africa, Belgium, and Hong Kong, so does China's epidemic prevention and control policy need to be changed?
Academician Li Lanjuan: Through two years of fighting the epidemic, China has successfully established a set of effective accurate experience in foreign defense imports, and China is neither paralyzed nor panicked. However, it is still necessary to continue to strengthen the accurate management of overseas imported personnel, especially for personnel from countries with serious epidemics to strengthen nucleic acid testing and achieve closed-loop management; in addition, to strengthen the detection and management of imported goods, and at the same time strengthen the health monitoring of people engaged in import and export such as logistics, customs and cold chain work, to ensure that the chain of imported "material transmission to people" is blocked at the first time.
Q: At present, will the Omicron variant affect the effectiveness of vaccination in China?
Academician Li Lanjuan: The coronavirus has more than 29,900 bases, and there are currently more than 30 mutations, which is not too big, do not panic, and continue to strengthen monitoring and sequencing. Viral variants can reduce the protective effect of neutralizing antibodies induced by vaccines, but the effects of vaccines should still exist, and little is known about the Omicron variant, and it will take time to assess their infectivity, causativeness, and effect on vaccines. In addition, the virus has been mutating, and we should continue to strengthen the development of vaccines and drugs for the new coronavirus variant.
Q: What do we need to do about the Omicron strain?
Academician Li Lanjuan: China has accumulated rich anti-epidemic experience in the stage of normalization of epidemic prevention and control, and it is necessary to continue to adhere to China's normalized prevention and control strategy of "external prevention of import and internal prevention and rebound", and at the same time strengthen the monitoring of mutated strains. In view of the emerging mutant strains, the people do not need to be particularly worried, ordinary people should actively cooperate with the government's epidemic prevention work, insist on not leaving the country unless necessary, reduce unnecessary travel, and actively vaccinate against the new crown.
Zhang Wenhong: At present, it will not have a big impact on China
On November 28, Dr. Zhang Wenhong, head of the Shanghai Covid-19 Clinical Treatment Expert Group and director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, posted on his personal social account and expressed his views on the mutant strain of the new crown virus, Aomi Kerong.
The full text is as follows:
The epidemic in Shanghai has entered the tail-picking stage. The new coronavirus mutant, The Semikron, landed in the world and quickly occupied all the academic forums and canteens of the people. A few comments for your reference:
1. The Omikeron variant was found to be a recent sudden event, undoubtedly the product of viral evolution. Since the number of mutation points far exceeds all the variants that have been discovered, it is expected that they should be formed after a long period of evolution in the host. Because the new crown virus is caused by acute infection, it is difficult to survive and evolve in the body of immune function for a long time, and there is no gene reprogramming like the influenza virus, most of the current belief that the variant may be in immunodeficiency people, such as AIDS patients, after a long period of carrying, and finally evolved. After the formation of new variants, it was transmitted by chance, and quickly surpassed the existing virus transmission capacity in spread, becoming the dominant strain (accounting for more than 90% of the recently recorded virus strains in South Africa).
2. Due to the large number of mutation points carried by the virus, it seems to have defeated other strains of the virus in South Africa in the short term of transmission, including the Delta strain. Therefore, WHO, out of caution, has included it in the Closely Watched Variant (VOC), which means that it is of great concern.
3. But does this mean that global efforts to fight the epidemic have been abandoned? It's hard to say. The total number of strain sequences released in South Africa this time is not much, and more data and laboratory data need to be observed in the next two weeks to accurately judge.
4. South Africa's vaccination completion rate is low, the proportion of the population that has completed the whole process of vaccination is only 24%, and the natural infection rate is about 4.9%, which is actually not enough to build an immune barrier for vaccines and natural infections. That is to say, if this situation occurs in Israel today, then there is no doubt that the global fight against the epidemic will face the risk of starting from scratch.
5. It is also clear here why the full vaccination rate of these vaccines in the United Kingdom and Israel exceeds 80%, especially the third dose in Israel has reached about 50%, and the measures taken by these two countries to import foreign countries have suddenly tightened. That is to say, in the case of South Africa, if it is clear that this virus strain can break through the original immune barrier, it means that we must adjust all the existing vaccine systems and start to enter the influenza vaccination mode, that is, every year according to the mutation of the virus, we must quickly build a new vaccine. But it also means that the days will get harder.
6. According to Reuters, in order to prevent the invasion of the epidemic, Israel announced on the 27th that it would close its borders and ban all foreign tourists from entering the country, becoming the first country in the world to block its borders due to the "Omicron" strain. Israeli Prime Minister Bennett said the ban could last for 14 days, the mutant strain was "very worrying" and that Israel was "on the verge of entering a state of emergency" and that everyone had to wait.
7. In this case, it can be judged that the emergence of the south African variant virus is accidental, but whether it will pose a threat to the current initial establishment of fragile population immunity will require about two weeks of observation. The reason why it was initially set within two weeks is because the global epidemiological data, as well as the virus neutralization and trial data, will produce results in two weeks to several weeks. These work are carried out simultaneously by our Fudan team and many brother scientific research teams in China. However, I agree with my friend Professor Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, that "the mutation of the new crown virus is limited to a certain extent, and in general, many variants of the new crown have not survived, even if some of the surviving varieties, only a very small number of them can become the dominant strains." From the outbreak to the present, at least hundreds of mutants have been found, but only one Delta can stay, in the past, beta and gamma variants have also been shown to have strong immune escape characteristics, but they still lost in the transmission match with Delta, and finally disappeared silently. "Let's wait and see, but it won't take long.
Finally, what should China do?
I don't think it will have a big impact on China at the moment, and China's current rapid response and dynamic zeroing strategy can cope with various types of COVID-19 variants.
The new crown virus has changed again, or the new crown virus. China is currently in a period of strategic opportunity won by the dynamic zero-clearing strategy, and is accelerating the construction of the scientific support needed for the next stage of responding to the normalization of the fight against the epidemic, including the formation of an effective vaccine and drug reserve sufficient to support the opening up of the world, as well as a reserve of public health and medical resources. Based on science and solidarity, we can deal with Delta, and we can deal with Opmikeron.
Source: CCTV Finance (ID: cctvyscj), CCTV News Client, People's Daily Health Client, China Economic Network, @Dr. Zhang Wenhong
Column Editor-in-Chief: Qin Hong Text Editor: Li Linwei Caption Source: IC photo Image Editor: Xiang Jianying
Source: Author: Zong He