New corona variants that are resistant to the available vaccines: This notion is one of the nightmare of the pandemic. Is there such a mutant now?
Geneva / Berlin / Tokyo – Data from Japan on possibly problematic properties of the lambda variant of the coronavirus do not cause particular concern among experts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) pointed to a currently not particularly strong spread of the variant: Covid-19 expert Maria van Kerkhove said: “It does not really go up, not even in Peru, where the variant was first discovered.” According to information from Peru the lambda variant is displaced by the gamma variant there.
The data from Japan are currently being overinterpreted, said the Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology, Carsten Watzl, at the request of the German Press Agency. The data showed that lambda was somewhat more contagious than the original virus in laboratory tests, but not more contagious than the Delta variant, which is currently prevalent in Germany.
Immunologist: Data not yet worrying
Lambda could therefore “escape immune protection somewhat, but not as strongly as Delta”. In this respect, this variant does not yet worry him based on the currently available data, explained Watzl.
A few days ago a Japanese team published a so-called pre-print entitled “Lambda variant has a higher infectivity and immune resistance”. The study has not yet been reviewed by external experts or published in a specialist journal. Several media recently reported on it.
Watzl announced that the term immune resistance in the title of the thesis was “simply wrong in relation to the data shown”. One must also say that no real lambda viruses were used for the investigation, but other viruses that only carry the so-called spike protein of lambda. Sars-CoV-2 thus enters human cells. Several of the new problematic variants show increased genetic changes at this point.
In many studies it is tested in the laboratory how well antibodies against variants work. However, such experiments only allow limited conclusions to be drawn about the protective effect of vaccination in real life. The human defense is also based on so-called T cells. Against this background, protection against severe courses is likely to remain even in the event of increased infections through the lambda variant, said Christine Dahlke from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) in a video link.
A US team also presented results in a pre-print at the beginning of July, which indicated that the vaccines currently used also protect against lambda.
Four variations are worrying
So far, the WHO has classified four coronavirus variants as worrying: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. They have been shown to be more contagious, more difficult to control, or lead to more serious illnesses.
Further variants are under observation as so-called Variants of Interest: Lambda (C.37) was included in this series in June. According to the WHO, lambda has now been detected in 40 countries; the first evidence came from August 2020.
In Germany, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute, lambda has been found 100 times in analyzes since the beginning of the year, which corresponds to a share of 0.1 percent. In the past few weeks, only isolated cases have been found. dpa
