US tracking COVID-19 mutants to see if vaccines continue to work – New Delhi Times

Health officials said Sunday that the United States is stepping up efforts to track several coronavirus variants as the virus continues to spread around the world.

Dr. Rochelle Warrensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plans to monitor “the effects of these variants on vaccines and drugs” as the virus continues to mutate during the spread of the virus.

“We are currently expanding both these surveillances and these studies,” Walensky said in a Sunday interview with Fox News. She said the CDC is working with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Defense to track coronavirus mutations.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there is news that the world is on the verge of reaching 100 million COVID-19 infections. More than 2 million people have died from the virus.

“We are competing with these variants,” Vivek Murthy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden as the next US Surgeon President, said in ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday.

When Biden was launched, Warrensky commanded the CDC last Wednesday.

Recent emergence of some coronavirus variants that have been shown to be more contagious-and perhaps more deadly for the first strain identified in the UK-is vaccination a top priority for health authorities I am doing it.

Walensky said that until a sufficient number of people were vaccinated, they would provide “herd” immunity, wear masks, keep a social distance, and “reduce the amount of circulating virus, and therefore exit.” We need to reduce the amount of mutants. ” There, “said the CDC chief.

Scientists said last week that British variants were associated with higher levels of mortality, but existing vaccines were still believed to be effective against it. However, more contagious South African variants could reduce the effectiveness of current vaccines, scientists said.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has become the latest global leader, announcing a positive test for COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus.

“I’m telling you that I’m infected with COVID-19. My symptoms are mild, but I’m already being treated,” the 67-year-old Twitter wrote on Sunday.

According to Johns Hopkins, Mexico has identified more than 1.7 million cases of COVID-19 and recorded more than 149,000 deaths. This is the fourth highest number of deaths in the world after the United States, Brazil and India.

India follows the number of cases in the United States with 10.6 million infections and more than 153,000 deaths. In Brazil, there are nearly 9 million cases and more than 217,000 deaths.

In mainland China, 124 new coronavirus infections were recorded on Sunday. Most of them are due to local infections, a slight increase from the 80 cases recorded on Saturday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday that Australia approved the use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus. The country plans to start vaccination of priority groups in late February.

New Zealand health officials confirmed on Monday that they were investigating the first domestic case of COVID-19 since mid-November.

A positive case is a 56-year-old woman infected with a South African variant. She returned to New Zealand on December 30, and probably infected fellow returnees at a quarantine facility, officials said.

COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said authorities are investigating whether the coronavirus may have spread through the ventilation and air conditioning systems of the quarantine facility.

Officials said the woman’s husband was negative on the test.

Due to the strict blockade, New Zealand has nearly eliminated the coronavirus and found new cases among travelers returning and quarantining. As of Sunday, there were 79 such cases. However, new variants from the United Kingdom and South Africa have been discovered in these cases, raising concerns that community expansion will return.

New Zealand does not expect the majority of its population to be vaccinated against the coronavirus until later this year.

Credit: Voice of America (VOA)