New COVID-19 strain in UK should be monitored, scientist in Malta says

Scientists at the Bio Arte laboratories at the Life Sciences Park have advised that the new strain of COVID-19 identified in the UK should be monitored in Malta.

UK scientists have isolated a new strain of the COVID-19 and shared the information on the global database for other scientists to study. “The impact of the new strain is not yet known but it is understood to be up to 70% more highly infective. This means that, despite all government measures to slow the spread of the virus in the UK, numbers may continue to remain as they are,” Manuele Biazzo, Scientific Director of the Bio Arte laboratories at the Life Sciences Park, said.

Over the weekend, a growing number of countries within Europe barred travel from the UK in a bid to block a new strain of COVID-19 which is sweeping across Southern England. The emergence of this variant has scientists worried because it is understood to be more infectious.

On Monday, Malta also stopped air travel to and from the UK. Only Maltese and other residents of Malta, who are currently in the UK, will be allowed to return to Malta but subjected to a PCR swab test on arrival and forced to go into mandatory quarantine

Biazzo said that it was crucial to intensify the sequencing activities not only to determine if the new variant is spreading all around Europe but also to share information with the global community and try to help all the scientists involved in this “battle”.

“It is too early to know the impact on the vaccines and the monoclonal anti-body treatments, with the vaccines due to be administered in January,” Biazzo said.

Bio Arte said it intended to continue to sequence samples of the virus to monitor its development, despite at great cost to the laboratory, and hopes that co-operation will be forthcoming from the authorities.

“It is a variant, a strain that has several mutations in its genome and some also concern the spike protein, responsible for binding to the host cell receptor and to manage the fusion of the viral and cellular membranes. It is not excluded that a virus will have frequent mutations. Various lineages of the coronavirus have also been identified, but they have not been associated with changes in virulence,” Biazzo said.

Biazzo said increasing transmissibility was important for public health measures. “We also still do not know if this variant has other biological characteristics that deserve to be explored further. We need to understand if the variant will have what is called ‘biological success’, that is if the mutations will make it more capable of surviving.”

Biazzo said that other variants in the past have disappeared. “There is no scientific evidence at the time of ineffectiveness of the vaccine. And we can’t even say that one vaccine can work better than another. By the way, we are still at genetic characterisation. Next, the scientific community should do a phenotypic study. We need to see how these affect the conformation of the spike protein. So, if they can affect it enough to happen in that part of the protein, that needs to be recognised by the vaccine-induced antibody.”

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