Coronavirus pandemic | Mutated strain spreading in US, Europe more contagious, finds study

A mutated strain of the novel coronavirus, which began spreading in Europe in February and then in the United States and Canada, had by March become the dominant form of the virus worldwide, a new study has found.

The new, dominant strain mutated from the original in Wuhan, China and seems to be more contagious, CNBC reported. It is this new strain that is spreading across the US.

A paper by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) warns that if the pandemic does not abate in summer, the virus could mutate further – potentially limiting the success of vaccines being developed based on the current strain.

The Los Alamos researchers, along with scientist at Duke University and the University of Sheffield in England, analysed thousands of coronavirus sequences collected by global collective Sharing All Influenza. They have identified 14 mutations, the report added.

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Lead author of the study and computational biologist at Los Alamos Bette Korber called the development “hard news” but asked people not to be disheartened.

“Please don't only be disheartened. Our team at LANL was able to document this mutation and its impact on transmission only because of a massive global effort of clinical people and experimental groups, who make new sequences of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) in their local communities available as quickly as they possibly can."

Published on BioRxiv, the paper is yet to be peer reviewed but other researchers acknowledged that mutation is of “urgent concern”.

This is not the first time such concerns have been raised.

In March, researchers at Peking University's School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai in China also said they found that two types of coronavirus could be causing infections worldwide.

This study found that nearly 70 percent of all analysed strains were of a new aggressive COVID-19 strain, while 30 percent were linked to the less aggressive strain. The latter was detected in Wuhan.