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Madrid | 01.01.2023 18:41
China is experiencing a wave of infections reminiscent of the worst moments of the pandemic in Europe. This surge in cases It is mainly due to three factors: the opening of the country after more than two years of pandemic with a “Covid-0” policy, the low percentage of immunization of the population due to a previous infection, and the low efficacy of Chinese vaccines.
Many countries have already begun taking measures to prevent a new wave of infections within their territories. Spain, as of this Saturday, has reinforced controls at Spanish airports requiring passengers coming from China to have a negative Covid test or complete vaccination schedule.
Despite these new measures, experts fear that the spread of the virus cannot be controlled and that the rise in cases in China increases the likelihood of new virus variants with "undesirable characteristics" emerging.
These "undesirable" qualities have been referred to by the Professor of Genetics at the University of Valencia and researcher at FISABIO, specialist in epidemiology and evolution of viruses and bacteria, Fernando González Candelas, in statements to SMC Spain.
Candelas explained that the risk of these new strains lies in the fact that they present increased transmissibility, escape from immune defenses obtained through previous infections or vaccination, or severity of the infection itself.
“The greatest risk comes from the greater number of cases, directly linked to the number of mutations the virus can explore to better adapt to its environment, both individual and community. Furthermore, given the previous health conditions in that country, where a very significant number of immunosuppressed people live, there is also an increased likelihood of completely different variants emerging than those we have observed so far, just as happened when the omicron variant appeared when delta was dominant in practically all countries,” he noted.
In his opinion, the concern that this situation leads to is aggravated by the lack of information and data on the current wave of cases, not only because of the incidence of new infections, but also because of the limited or non-existent information on the variants that are associated with them.
“This is important to be able to update the composition of vaccines, as has been done in the second booster dose with the omicron variant, thus counteracting the lower neutralization capacity of our immune system against new variants with more mutations in the epitopes (the areas of the virus proteins) that our antibodies recognize,” he emphasized.
However, the expert has recalled that current vaccines They continue to protect with high efficiency against serious infections and against transmission. “Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 allows us to accelerate the response to the evolution of the virus should it occur,” he concluded.
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