The new variant of the SarsCoV2 virus, indicated with the initials B.1.620, HAS originated in Cameroon. It has been identified in Lithuania and in France, Germany, Spain and Belgium, it has mutations common to variants classified among those to be carefully evaluated (Voc). This is reported by the research conducted by a dozen European centers led by the Lithuanian University of Vilnius and online on the medRxiv website, which publishes studies not yet validated by the scientific community.
The research, whose first author is Gytis Dudas, is reported by the journal Science on its website and underlines the need to strengthen support for poorer countries to prevent the emergence of further new dangerous variants.
Variant B.1.620 would have emerged in central Africa, probably in Cameroon, but the almost complete lack of sequencing done in the poorest countries makes it impossible to be certain. A phenomenon considered very worrying by the magazine Science, which its website notes that at the moment there are 51 countries, including large nations such as India, Indonesia, Russia and Brazil, that have loaded sequences relating to less than 0 into the large international database Gisaid. 1% of cases identified within them.
These are, the magazine notes, nations that also have little or no access to vaccines and are grappling with serious internal outbreaks. A worrying mix of conditions that can favor the spread of new variants and that should push rich countries to give greater support to containment measures in poorer ones. According to Dudas “it would be much more interesting to sequence the last 1,000 cases in the Central African Republic than the next 100,000 cases in Germany”.
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