It is technically impossible to say whether or not it will supplant the mutation that has become prevalent, almost in an absolute sense, the Delta. But some signs come from England, where one out of ten Covid contagion comes from the increasingly widespread sub-variant of the Delta strain, called Delta plus. This is what emerged from the long-term study known as REACT-1, according to which it has been advancing with a growth rate of 2.8% per day since September.
The president of virologists: in the future it could prevail
“Between those who have not yet had the vaccine and those who do not want to do it, it becomes a problem to manage the situation right now, with such an aggressive virus” as SARS-CoV-2 proves to be even with the new variant (AY.4.2) that «according to the latest studies it is 50 times stronger than the original strain». Stronger because “more efficient in replication”, warns the president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv) Arnaldo Caruso. Therefore able to run very fast risking to prevail over the others in the future.
“From a work that has just come out, which therefore needs to be validated – underlines the expert, full professor of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology at the University of Brescia and director of the Microbiology Laboratory of Asst Spedali Civili – it would seem that in addition to some mutations in the protein Spike, used by the pandemic coronavirus to “hook” target cells, also has a mutation of an internal protein, an N protein or nucleoprotein, which could contribute to making it more aggressive ». Even if, Caruso is keen to specify, at this moment «not more able to” pierce “the vaccine shield».
Contagious like chickenpox
More contagious than measles, at the levels of chickenpox, according to the advisor to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, Walter Ricciardi. Despite this, the Delta plus would not be more dangerous than the currently prevalent one. “The danger lies in the greater diffusivity of the virus,” Ricciardi said in an interview. “Hence the need to run with the third doses and to insist with the first in that still large slice of the population that has not been immunized”.
Delta in 99% sequenced cases, Alpha disappeared
According to the latest systematized survey, in Italy 99.9% of sequencing is attributable to the Delta variant (already the bulletin of the Higher Institute of Health on the variants of 1 October recorded 98.4%). For the first time there have been no reports of cases due to the Alpha variant, with rare new cases of infection caused by the Gamma and Beta variant. At the moment there are limited numbers of sequences of Delta plus in Italy, present in many regions. A recent case reported by the media concerns a 44-year-old from Carbonia who has never been outside Sardinia: the tracking started in the meantime will help to limit the spread of Delta plus as soon as possible to prevent the infection from spreading to the rest of the island.