GENEVA, November 26. /TASS/. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution will discuss the new coronavirus strain recently discovered in South Africa at a meeting on Friday. WHO Spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told TASS that the media would be informed about the meeting’s results.
"The meeting is starting around noon Geneva time today, I don’t know the duration," he said, adding that "some sort of communication" would follow.
On Thursday, WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove said in Geneva that the organization’s specialists were in close contact with their colleagues in South Africa in order to study the new coronavirus strain. The Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution will particularly discuss whether the strain was a Variant of Concern (VOC) or a Variant of Interest (VOI). If the strain fits into one of these categories, it will be named after a Greek alphabet letter. According to Van Kerkhove, research is planned to be conducted particularly to figure out if the variant was capable of impacting the effectiveness of vaccines.
The first person infected with the B.1.1.529 coronavirus strain was detected recently in Botswana. According to a local radio station, he is a South African national. Most of those carrying this coronavirus variant have so far been identified in South Africa. However, cases have also been reported in Botswana and Hong Kong. It has been established that the strain has 50 mutations, including 34 in the protein sequences of virus spikes. In fact, it indicates an evolutionary leap of the coronavirus, which now has an entire set of mutations that scientists did not expect, Director of South Africa’s Center of Epidemic Response Tulio De Oliveira pointed out. The country’s researchers have come to the preliminary conclusion that the B.1.1.529 strain is capable of infecting fully vaccinated people.