Hybrid mutant coronavirus strain labelled ‘of concern’ in Britain

Two mutant coronavirus strains have merged, spiking a testing surge across Britain, as health authorities label the new variant ‘of concern’.

Public Health England epidemiologist Susan Hopkins. Picture: AFP

Two mutant coronavirus strains have merged, spiking a testing surge across Britain, as health authorities label the new variant “of concern”.

The mutation is a combination of the South African variant, which has been identified as potentially resistant to vaccines, and the UK variant, which is up to 70 per cent more infectious.

The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group in England have categorised the new mutation first identified in Bristol as a variant “of concern”.

There have been 14 cases in Bristol, four in Manchester, and three cases elsewhere in the UK, forcing major cities to set up more community testing centres in a bid to get the variant under control.

The E484K mutation is part of the genetic make-up of both the South African and Brazilian variants and genome sequencing has identified the highly concerning mutation in the UK variant B117.

It changes the shape of the virus’s spike protein, which is responsible for gaining entry to human cells, making the virus less recognisable to the body’s immune system. This is problematic if the body has been trained to fight the virus from the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines.

Public Health England, however, said it had a “high degree of confidence that the vaccines will work against variants.”

Susan Hopkins from PHE said while the South African variant was under control in Britain at the moment, the best way to maintain that was to “reduce all cases”.

“To date, we have identified 170 cases and 18 of these are unlinked to travel, and that means they neither travelled abroad themselves or were a direct contact with an individual that has travelled,” she said. “If we keep R below one, it is highly unlikely this will become an exponential event.”

This week, Britain introduced an Australian-style hotel quarantine system for people travelling from 33 red-listed countries.

Connecting flights for some of those countries will still come into the UK but those who lie about where they were coming from face up to 10 years in jail.

Andrew Pollard, who is heading up the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, told the UK parliament this week the vaccine had proved able to protect against new variants.