Covid's New Variant 'NeoCov' Strain Killing People
A new variant of Covid-19 named as 'NeoCov' has been found.
Scientists from China's Wuhan have warned about a new strain of coronavirus, NeoCov variant in South Africa. As per reports by Russian news agency Sputnik, the new variant strain has high death and transmission rate.
The NeoCov variant is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome MERS-coronavirus. NeoCoV has high mortality rate of MERS-CoV where one in three infected people die on average and the high transmission rate of the current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, said the researchers.
What do the experts say?
On Thursday, the experts from the Vector Russian State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology issued a statement, in response to the publication. They stated, "Experts from the Vector research centre are aware of the data that Chinese researchers obtained regarding the NeoCov coronavirus. At this time, it’s not about the emergence of a new coronavirus capable of actively spreading among humans", reported Russian news agency Sputnik.
The research paper published in the bioRxiv website said, "Furthermore, our studies show that the current COVID-19 vaccinations are inadequate to protect humans from any eventuality of the infections caused by these viruses."
"Considering the extensive mutations in the RBD regions of the SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the heavily mutated omicron variant, these viruses may hold a latent potential to infect humans through further adaptation via antigenic drift," the paper adds.
