The new COVID-19 mutation found in the UK could infect more children than previous strains, according to a group of scientists advised by the government.
To date, COVID-19 has mostly affected adults, but children appear to be just as susceptible to the new strain, which is also believed to be more contagious, reporters in the advisory group for new respiratory virus threats have told reporters. and emerging.
“There is one clue that has a greater propensity to infect children,” Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College London, a NERVTAG member on the mutation that forced London to close, said on Monday.
Studies in recent weeks show that “variant cases in children under 15 were statistically significantly higher than non-variant virus,” he said, according to The Independent.
Wendy Barclay, another NERVTAG professor and virology specialist, said the mutations in the new variant include changes in the way it enters human cells, which could mean that “children are, perhaps, equally susceptible to this virus like adults “.
“We’re not saying it’s a virus specifically targeted at children,” he said, saying it instead puts them “on a more equitable playing field” with adults when it comes to infection, said The Independent.
The mutation (VUI 202012/01) is being blamed for a huge rise in cases in the wider London area, forcing the government to effectively “cancel Christmas” there and leading a large number of nations to go close its borders with the United Kingdom.
NERVTAG President Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Oxford University, confirmed that experts “are now very confident that this variant has a transmission advantage over other virus variants currently on the market. United Kingdom”.
Barclay, meanwhile, said they were not yet “completely” confident that the vaccines that have just been rolled out would be effective against the new variant.
This work “is underway in several laboratories across the UK,” he said of urgent studies, with others being carried out in the US and also by the vaccine manufacturers themselves.
With publishing cables