Doctors in Belgium they found in a woman a variant of the virus called alpha, first discovered in Britain, as well as a beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. They believe that the patient became infected from two different people.
The woman, who had not been vaccinated, first came to the hospital in March due to low blood oxygenation. Tests on her the same day showed coronavirus, two variants at once. “Both of these variants were spreading in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady became infected with different types of the virus from two different people,” said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen of the Belgian hospital. He is currently conducting research on the case of an unusual patient.
“However, it is difficult to say whether the simultaneous infection with two variants played a role in the rapid deterioration of the patient’s condition,” said the scientist. She added that it should be done with greater effort to find out which variants infect patients.
According to the scientist, no mention of a similar case has appeared in professional journals yet, which does not mean that such cases have not occurred. According to her, this is probably a phenomenon to which not enough attention has been paid yet. Brazilian doctors also reported similar cases in January, but have not yet published the results of their research.
According to virologist Lawrence Young, such findings are not surprising. “This study emphasizes the need for more research to determine whether infection with multiple coronavirus variants affects the clinical course of covid-19 and whether it in any way compromises the effectiveness of vaccination,” he said.
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The coronavirus constantly mutates during human-to-human transmission, creating a large number of new variants. Some of them may be more dangerous than the prevalent versions of the virus, either through greater infectivity, mortality, or, for example, the ability to bypass the immunity that vaccination gives people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far declared four of these variants to be particularly worrying, after which it has begun to name them after the letters of the Greek alphabet. In many parts of the world, there is now a new increase in the number of infected variants called delta, which was first discovered in India.
Infected covid in Russia continues to increase rapidly
Mask last day, he registered 25,033 people infected with coronavirus, 749 of whom died of covid-19. It’s a little less than the day before. With reference to the Russian operational staff, this was stated by the Reuters agency. Most patients from 31 January report St. Petersburg.
On Saturday, the Russian authority reported 49 more people infected, and according to them, three more people died after the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection. In total, 143,002 people have died and almost 5.8 million have become infected in a country of around 146 million since the beginning of the pandemic.
About a fifth of those infected, namely 5,410, are in the capital Moscow. In St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia, authorities on Sunday reported 2007 new infections on Sunday, according to TASS. This is the most since January 31. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 489,928 people have fallen ill, which is about nine percent of the city’s population.
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The epidemic in Russia is intensifying due to a more contagious delta mutation. Vaccination against covid-19, which began there last December with the local Sputnik V vaccine, is progressing slowly. About eighteen percent of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine so far, and about thirteen percent of people have both doses.
Israel is offering a third dose of covid vaccine to immunocompromised people
Residents Israel with weakened immunity will be able to come to the third dose of covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, said Israeli Health Minister Nican Horovic. Horovic’s office has not yet decided whether the general public will be entitled to revaccination, Reuters reported.
Due to the spread of the coronavirus delta mutation, Israel is trying to speed up vaccination. This is happening in a situation where recently up to 450 new infections have started to increase in one day, while a few weeks ago they were only on the order of cases per day. From Sunday, adults with weaker immunity who have received two doses of Pfizer / BioNTech can apply for revaccination.
The pharmaceutical companies, which supplied most of the vaccines to Israel for the vaccination campaign, said on Thursday that they would apply to US and European regulators for permission to supply revaccination vaccines within a few weeks. They refer to an increased risk of infection six months after vaccination. The companies have not released data on this yet, but they claim that they will do so soon.
Regarding the vaccination of the general public with the third dose of the Horovic vaccine, he said that “we are addressing this issue, but we do not yet have an answer to it.”
About half of the 46 covid patients currently hospitalized in Israel in a serious condition are vaccinated. Most of them are from risk groups, health authorities said. 5.7 million of Israel’s approximately 9.3 million people have received at least one dose of covid vaccine.
The head of the public health department at the Ministry of Health, Sharon Alrojová-Preis, said that Israel would not be in a hurry to decide on a possible third benefit for the general public. According to her, it is still not clear whether the vaccine is less effective against the delta mutation, and whether the morbidity is higher among those who received the vaccine in January and February than among those who were vaccinated later.
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