Coronavirus is mutating fast and having various stains like S, G, V and the unclassified variant, experts say. If a virus mutates too fast, vaccines being developed now will potentially become useless, and pharmaceuticals will have to constantly keep up with the mutations by developing new vaccines all the time.
As per research, which is still underway in country, there is the biggest representation of G and the unclassified variant. But in metros such as Delhi, representation of S and V has been found.
TB Hospital medical superintendent Dr AK Shrivastava said coronavirus is mutating. This is the reason researchers are finding difficulties in finding medicines and vaccines. “Pharmaceutical companies are making medicines and vaccine but by then coronavirus occupies other stains and medicines and vaccines become useless,” he added.
Hamidia Hospital medical superintendent Dr IK Chaurasia said coronavirus is changing its stains and mutating fast. “Research is still going on in the country over it and final reports will be made public. We prescribe the medicines as per the protocol of health ministry.”
Recently, another form D614G, a mutation of SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, has been detected in at least three of 45 cases in a cluster. The D614G mutation has become the dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2, found in swab samples. As per researchers, the mutation seems to have given the virus some kind of biological edge enabling its global spread.
A strain is a sub-type of a virus, characterised by different cell surface proteins, eliciting a different immune response from other strains. A mutation, however, is very minor genetic malfunctioning in genome sequences made during replication.
