Wen 丨 farmer
Edited by 丨 Nongfu Science Popularization
The new crown virus has mutated again, spreading faster and with higher infection rates, why can it "poison" humans for so long?
Not long ago, the British Health Security Agency once again confirmed that the new crown strain has mutated under people's eyes, this mutant virus is named XE by scientists, is a recombinant variant of two Omilon strains, and 637 cases of infected with mutated strains have been found in the Uk.
As a recombinant variant, XE is a new version of a mixture of two strains, which is derived from a recombination of the Ami keron BA1 and its "sister" the Omilon BA2.
The recombinant virus is not as simple as we think, it is like we who have fused the excellent genes of both parents, and are evolving in a higher and stronger direction in the continuous recombinant mutation.
The recombinant XE virus did not differ significantly from its previous generation of BA2 in its early symptoms, but from the latest data, the XE virus spread 9.8 percent faster than before.
From the data that has been released, patients infected with the XE variant strain are mainly concentrated in London and the central part of England, and these places are characterized by dense populations, which means that if it is not controlled in time, then the Xe virus is likely to spread in the future.
And this spread also seems to have appeared in other countries, not long ago Israel said that a couple of about thirty years old, after taking the inbound flight landing, there were different degrees of fever headache and muscle soreness and other symptoms, but after sequencing the virus infected by the two people, the staff found that the virus they were infected did not belong to any of the new coronavirus that had been found, until the XE virus was confirmed to be found, people determined that the virus infected by the two people was this type.
Although the number of people currently infected with the XE variant is less than one per cent of the total number of sequenced cases in the UK, this does not mean that we do not need to worry about the spread of the XE virus. In addition to far exceeding the speed of transmission of the previous virus, BA2, one of the predecessors of the XE virus, is also a well-known existence, which alone has increased the speed of the spread of the new crown epidemic by 75%.
Before the XE virus appeared, the relevant workers had found several other variants, such as XD and XF that had been found, all of which were variants produced by the reorganization of the Delta and Omikejong BA1 strains, but these two variants only existed in the UK for a while, and after infecting dozens of people, they completely disappeared.
This is actually the result of natural selection, the same belongs to the product of nature, the virus follows the basic law of survival of the fittest, these viruses in the process of continuous transmission, will be affected by the host environment and constantly mutate, and the direction of mutation is often full of uncertainty, so with continuous mutation, these viruses in the step by step natural selection, leaving a more adaptable to the environment of the virus variant, and these most suitable for survival of the virus variant, obviously have their own unique.
According to the information released by relevant scientists, the premise of infection with this XE strain is that the patient is infected with more than two different variants of a virus at the same time, and generally speaking, when the virus encounters this situation, the result is nothing more than one party completely eliminating the other party, thereby monopolizing the host.
However, when neither of the two mutated strains of the virus can conquer the other, they will reach a "reconciliation" and exchange each other's genetic material in the human body, resulting in a new genetic offspring, which is a variant of the recombinant virus.
After genetic sequencing of the new recombinant variant, scientists found that the spike protein of XE comes from the variant of BA2, which also points out the direction of future vaccine development, because the spike protein is the main immunogen and target of the current vaccine research and development, as well as antibody therapy, and only by determining the type of spike protein can the epidemic prevention and control be better carried out.
However, the more serious problem at present is that after research scientists have found that there are more than thirty points of genetic mutations in the spike protein of the Omiljun strain, and the highly mutated spike protein will pose a certain challenge to the prevention and control of the epidemic in the future.
Compared with the new crown virus with a higher and higher degree of evolution now, perhaps we will sometimes miss the new crown epidemic, after all, compared to the later virus, the original new crown virus seems to retain a trace of good thoughts, its outbreak time is short and the cure rate is faster, but it suddenly appeared in front of us, at the beginning it caught everyone off guard, so it was allowed to exploit the loophole, and the mutant virus that is currently known and infected with humans has basically caused us a lot of trouble. Because they are more infectious and more difficult to cure.
These mutant viruses are known to not only spread in the human body, they also infect many primates, and many animals such as cats, dogs, hamsters, and so on are their parasitic targets.
Tracing the origin of this virus, it is not difficult to find that these viruses first infected animals, and then infected humans through animals.
As early as the early days of the new crown outbreak, researchers have tested domestic pets, animals in zoos and animals in farms, and found that in the process of virus transmission, the mutation process of many viruses is basically related to animals, some scientists have conducted blood tests on animals in Wuhan, and they found the sequence of new coronavirus in pet cats, which shows that during the previous epidemic period, many cats have also been infected with new coronavirus, and the probability of them being infected with new coronavirus is far higher than other animals.
In addition, scientists have also found that the new crown virus will not only spread from animal to animal or from person to person, but also between people and animals, and the use of this transmission process directly leads to mutation and recombination between viruses, thereby strengthening the speed of their infection and infection capacity.
Therefore, experts speculate that the future development of the new crown virus is likely to exceed people's imagination. Because in the traceability of the virus, scientists have also found similar viruses in bats, although the similarity between the two is as high as 96%, but because the receptor binding domain of the two is very different, the coronavirus in bats is actually unable to infect humans, which does not mean that it will not pose a threat to us.
Because until now scientists have not found the source of the new crown virus, even the bats that are "virus hotbeds" can not find its shadow, which means that until now we have not found the intermediate host of the virus. If so, it is likely that it is still hidden in the body of some animal, and then in the process of continuous mutation and selection, it once again has the ability to infect the human body.
Is there really no way for us to solve it completely?
According to relevant experts, because the newly mutated XE virus is very different from the previous spike protein, it puts forward higher requirements for epidemic protection. According to the current research situation, the pathogenicity and fatality rate of the XE virus are not yet certain, but fortunately, the Opmi-Kejungya variants BA1 and BA2 are much lower in infectivity and fatality rates than Delta virus for fully vaccinated people. But these two viruses are more dangerous for those who have not been vaccinated. Because they are more contagious than Delta viruses, they are also more immune to escape.
However, according to the data that has been released so far, scientists have found that although the mutated viruses are more contagious and pathogenic, their fatality rate has decreased to varying degrees. This is because in the process of spreading mutations, viruses also need to follow the "triangular equilibrium" law given by nature, that is, in the three aspects of the mutation rate of viruses and the mortality rate, viruses can generally only choose two characteristics for development, and the remaining one feature will be abandoned by them.
For example, the Ebola virus that ravaged South Africa in the early years, the 90% fatality rate and variability once made Ebola a discolored existence. However, limited by the mode of transmission, Ebola did not go out of South Africa, coupled with the ultra-high fatality rate led to a large number of host deaths, Ebola virus, which could not survive outside the cell, gradually disappeared from people's vision.
But the new crown is different, in the long evolution, the new crown seems to find the "trick" to survive, after all, the host is dead they can not survive, so for the three characteristics of the virus, the high fatality rate is appropriately abandoned by them, followed by strong variability and rapid transmission speed.
Not only that, but the new crown spreads at different speeds in different animals. This actually has a lot to do with the population density of different species of animals.
In general, those animals that are in regular contact with us are more likely to be infected with the new crown virus than other animals, especially for those cats that often like to communicate with the population, they may really be a high-risk group susceptible to the new crown virus, but for this situation, we should not worry too much, because from the current research reports, there has been no case of cats returning to humans.
But when it comes to animals that can infect humans, we have to mention mink in a foreign country, as a "high-risk patient" of the new crown virus, Danish mink has appeared to be infected with the new crown virus back to humans, and their transmission speed within the population can not be underestimated, according to the information released by the relevant departments, Denmark has appeared 8% infected with the new crown mink, resulting in 97% of the mink inside the population are infected.
In all the course of the virus's spread, scientists are most worried about the return of animals to humans. Because in this process, the probability of mutation of the virus will become larger, and the direction of mutation is often uncontrollable.
We have no idea when they will mutate, what the direction of their next mutation will be, and whether the mutated virus will have the ability to infect humans. Therefore, based on this characteristic of the new crown virus, relevant experts suggest that the best way to prevent being infected by the virus is still to vaccinate, especially for immunocompromised groups, and after vaccination, our ability to prevent infection will be improved.