A new variant of the coronavirus has developed in India, one that is making public health officials worried because it may be causing the country’s terrible outbreak and could reduce the efficacy of available vaccines.
The India variant, known as B.1.617 and first identified in October, has been dubbed the “double mutant” variant because it contains two mutations of interest, E484Q and L452R. These are mutations on the spike protein, the part of the virus that attaches to a cell.
“Having two of these mutations which have been seen in other variants around the world are concerning, because there’s a similarity in these mutations that confer increased transmissibility, and some of these mutations also result in reduced neutralization, which may have an impact on our countermeasures, including the vaccines,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the COVID-19 technical lead at the World Health Organization, in a press conference last week.
E484Q and L452R are known as escape mutations. These types of mutations make it easier for the spike proteins on the virus to evade the antibodies elicited by vaccines and invade cells in the body. Recent research in the journal Cell Host & Microbe found that E484Q was able to evade antibodies in convalescent plasma. An article in Cell recently found that variants containing L452R became more resistant to neutralizing antibodies.
Those attributes raise the fear that a person who’s been vaccinated might still be able to carry enough of the mutated virus to infect others, including people who have not been inoculated or have been but have weakened immune systems. That could cause increased hospitalizations and deaths.
Still, people who have been vaccinated and are infected by a coronavirus mutation are not likely to develop severe COVID-19 or die. Vaccines also elicit a response from another part of the immune system known as T-cells that attack cells infected with a virus. Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently found that T-cells are able to recognize mutated forms of the coronavirus.
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Right now, scientists are uncertain whether B.1.167 is more infectious or more lethal. That has led the World Health Organization to classify B.1.167 as a “variant of interest,” meaning that it is one that is suspected of being more contagious or more deadly than the original strain. If more evidence emerges that B.1.167 is more transmissible or fatal, the WHO would reclassify it as a “variant of concern.”
India is currently experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, especially in the state of Maharashtra, which accounts for half of the country’s active cases. On Friday, India experienced a record number of daily cases that exceeded 330,000. Deaths also set a record high of 2,263. Reports of hospitals running out of beds and oxygen are common.
The extent to which B.1.167 is responsible for the current surge is unclear. It has been detected in 10% of the samples that have been genomically sequenced in India. But scientists say more data are needed.
“It seems to be the case, but we cannot say it scientifically. We cannot say so as we have sequenced very small numbers of samples, some 15,000 so far, and we so do not have adequate data to conclude that the B.1.617 variant is responsible for the surge,” Dr. Vineeta Bal, an immunologist and a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, recently told News 18, a news channel in India.
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In mid-April, a case of B.1.617 was discovered in California. Shortly thereafter, scientist William Haseltine wrote in Forbes, “The B.1.617 variant has all the hallmarks of a very dangerous virus. If indeed it is this variant that is driving the unprecedented exponential increase in infections in India, the potential for trouble here in the United States is real and immediate.”
