The new COVID-19 infection causes mutations and is the main driver of new mutants, not vaccines-Health News, Firstpost

Almost all mutations that occur are harmless glitches that do not alter the behavior of the virus. Some can harm the virus, but only a few can make the virus more infectious.

Delta variants have spread around the world, and the following variants are already growing. If the goal is to limit the infection, the vaccine is the answer. Image Credit: Tech2 / Abigail Banerji

Beginning of coronavirus Variants have highlighted the significant impact of evolutionary biology on everyday life. However, how mutations, random coincidences, and natural selection produce mutants is a complex process, and there has been a lot of confusion about how and why new mutants emerge.

Until recently, the most famous example of rapid evolution is The story of Oshimo Friedaka.. In the mid-1800s, a factory in Manchester, England began to soot moth habitats, making the normal white color of moths visible to predators. However, some moths had mutations that darkened them. They were better camouflaged in the new world, so they were able to avoid predators and breed more than their white opponents.

we Evolutionary biologist When Infectious disease epidemiologist At the University of Pittsburgh, we are working together to track and control the evolution of pathogens.How have we been over the past year and a half coronavirus We have acquired various mutations all over the world.

It’s natural to wonder if it’s very effective COVID-19 (New Coronavirus Infection)

Vaccines have led to the emergence of variants that evade the vaccine. For example, Oshimo Friedaka avoided bird-hunting birds.But just below 40% of people in the world have been vaccinated – Only 2 percent in low-income countries – and Nearly one million new infectious diseases occur every day around the worldThe emergence of new, more contagious variants, such as Delta, is caused by uncontrolled infections, not vaccines.

How the virus mutates

For all organisms, including viruses, copying their genetic code is the essence of reproduction – but this process is often incomplete. coronavirus es uses RNA for genetic information and copies RNA More error prone than using DNA.. Researchers coronavirus Duplicate, About 3% of new virus copies have new random errors, Also known as mutation.

Each infection produces Millions of viruses Causes many mutations in the human body coronavirus es. However, the number of mutated viruses has been diminished by far more viruses, which is the same as the strain that initiated the infection.

Almost all mutations that occur are harmless glitches It doesn’t change the way the virus works-and others actually do harm to the virus. Small changes can make the virus more infectious, but these mutants must also be lucky. To create a new variant, you need to jump to a new person and duplicate many copies.

Communication is an important bottleneck

Most viruses in infected individuals are genetically identical to the strain that initiated the infection.is Much more likely to be one of these copies – Not a rare mutation – inherited by someone else. According to a survey Mutant viruses are rarely transmitted From the original host to another person.

And even if new mutants cause infection, mutant viruses are usually more numerous than non-mutant viruses in new hosts. Usually does not infect the following people..

The small odds of the mutant being sent are “Population bottleneck.. The fact that only a few viruses initiate the next infection is an important random factor that limits the likelihood of new variants occurring. The birth of all new variants is a coincidence event, including copy errors and unlikely send events.Of the millions coronavirus In a copy of an infected person, it is unlikely that the fitter mutant will spread to others and be among the few that will be amplified into new mutants.

How will new variants emerge?

Unfortunately, the uncontrolled spread of the virus can overcome even the toughest bottlenecks. Most mutations do not affect the virus, For some people, how highly contagious can be and is increasing coronavirus teeth..When rapidly spreading strain can cause many COVID-19 (New Coronavirus Infection) In some cases, it begins to defeat the less contagious strain and produces new mutants – As the delta variant did..

Many researchers are studying which mutations lead to a more contagious version. coronavirus ..Variant found Tends to have many of the same mutations that Increase the amount of virus produced by an infected person.. With over one million new infections occurring each day and billions of people not yet vaccinated, there is rarely a shortage of sensitive hosts. Therefore, natural selection exploits all these unvaccinated people and coronavirus More contagious.

The best way to constrain evolution under these circumstances coronavirus Is to reduce the number of infections.

Vaccines block new variants

Delta variants are spread all over the world The following variants are already increasing.. If the goal is to limit the infection, the vaccine is the answer.

Vaccinated people can still be infected with the delta mutant, They tend to experience shorter and milder infections From an unvaccinated individual. This greatly reduces the chances of a mutated virus (which increases the infectivity of the virus or may exceed the immunity of the vaccine) to jump from one person to another.

Ultimately, almost everyone coronavirus From vaccination, this immune-breaking virus can gain a competitive advantage over other strains. In this situation, natural selection can theoretically result in mutations that can infect vaccinated people and cause serious illness. However, these mutants still need to avoid population bottlenecks.

So far, vaccine immunity is unlikely to be a major player in the emergence of mutants, as many new infections are occurring. It’s just a number game.The modest benefits the virus will get from vaccine evasion Dwarfing the enormous opportunity to infect unvaccinated people..

The world has already witnessed a link between the number of infections and the increase in mutants. NS coronavirus It hadn’t changed essentially for months before the pandemic went out of control. Due to the relatively low number of infections, the genetic code had limited opportunities to mutate. However, as the infected cluster exploded, the virus rolled millions of times and some mutations produced more suitable mutants.

The best way to stop new variants is to stop their spread, and the answer is vaccination.

Vaughan Cooper, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh Lee Harrison, University of Pittsburgh, Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology

This article will be republished from conversation Under a Creative Commons license.read Original work..

The new COVID-19 infection causes mutations and is the main driver of new mutants, not vaccines-Health News, Firstpost

Source link The new COVID-19 infection causes mutations and is the main driver of new mutants, not vaccines-Health News, Firstpost