Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology. (Image via Wikipedia)

Eijkman: New COVID-19 variant hasn't entered Indonesia

Newswriter English 1
Business & Industry
Medical and Health
Feb 10, 2021
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Indonesia's Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology stated that so far, Indonesia has not found the mutation or the new variant of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as in England, the United States (U.S), and South Africa. The statement came from Eijkman's Director, Amin Soebandrio, speaking on Tuesday.

Soebandrio said that currently, there are three COVID-19 variants detected across the globe: B.1.17, B1.1.1.28.1/P1, and B.1.351. Moreover, these variants also caused different mutations from the SARC-CoV-2 genome beginning in Wuhan, China. The finding was based on the Whole Genome Sequence (WGS) of the SARS-CoV-2 sent to GISAID. Nonetheless, Soebandrio did not clarify when was the latest time WGS was sent to GISAID.

Once formed to study avian influenza, GISAID is an institution founded by the German Government to study virus' genetics. GISAID has done thousands of studies on viruses and microbe genomes of the world's previous pandemic. And now, it is studying the virus behind COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2.

Previously, South Africa halted the usage of COVID-19's vaccine from AstraZeneca-Oxford after the vaccine was proven unable to protect patients from the new COVID-19 variant. While they only showed mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms, about 46,000 people died due to the COVID-19's B.1.351 variant there. Hence, the dangerous COVID-19 strain has spread to almost 32 countries, including the U.S.

The incident occurred after almost one million dosages of AstraZeneca-Oxford's vaccine arrived in South Africa last week. The scientists tabulated that the vaccine's effectiveness rate was so low to fight B.1.351., hence rendering the vaccine ineffective. However, the study has not been submitted to the scientific journal yet.

Not only AstraZeneca-Oxford but also Pfizer and Moderna came clean, saying that the laboratory result showed that their vaccines are not effective to fight the B.1.351 variant.

Source: https://bit.ly/36XLZfJ