The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday designated a Lambda variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus “of interest”, first detected in Peru in August 2020 and present in several Latin American countries.
According to the Peruvian authorities cited in the WHO weekly report, 81% of COVID-19 cases diagnosed since last April in the country are associated with the Lambda strain.
By declaring it a “variant of interest”, the WHO gives the signal that it is observing its behavior in terms of contagion power, before eventual inclusion in the category of “worrying variants”, such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
The COVID-19 variants are considered of interest if the genome has mutations with implications for its contagion or its severity and has been identified as causing community transmission or has been detected in several countries.
First detected in August 2020 in Peru, currently 29 countries around the world reported its presence, especially in South America, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile.
“Argentina reported an increasing prevalence of Lambda since the third week of February 2021, and between April 2 and May 19, 2021, the variant represented 37% of COVID-19 sequence cases. In Chile, the Lambda prevalence has increased over time, accounting for 32% of the sequenced cases reported in the last 60 days, co-circulating at rates similar to the Gamma variant (33%), but exceeding the Alpha variant (4%) during the same period “, indicated the weekly epidemiological report of the WHO.
The WHO indicates that it is observing the epidemiological behavior of the strain and its “potential increase in transmissibility and resistance to neutralizing antibodies”, since so far there is little information on the impact of the mutations it presents.
The UN agency identified the Lambda strain based on its recent decision to attribute Greek letters to designate the variants without stigmatizing the countries where they are first detected.
What do we know about the variants of COVID-19?
The WHO has reiterated that it is normal for a virus to mutate and give rise to new variants, especially in the case of SARS CoV-2, which is spreading throughout the world. Although most of these mutations have little or no effect on the ability of the virus to infect or cause symptoms, some changes have affected the property of the virus, such as its ability to transmit and the severity of infection symptoms.
The Geneva-based body hopes that the approved COVID-19 vaccines will provide some protection against the new lyrical variants, as the people to whom they have been administered show an immune response against different antibodies and cells.
Measures to reduce the transmission of the disease – such as hand washing, the use of face masks and maintaining a healthy distance between people – are still key to reducing the appearance of new variants. WHO also notes that it will be critical to multiply the production and distribution of vaccines as quickly and widely as possible.
“The UN agency identified the Lambda strain based on its recent decision to attribute Greek letters to designate the variants without stigmatizing the countries where they are first detected,” says the United Nations agency.
With information from AFP
