Malaysia has detected a strain of the novel coronavirus that’s been found to be 10 times more infectious than the original Wuhan strain, the country’s Director General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah said.
According to a Bloomberg report, the mutation of D614G has been noticed in three instances from a cluster that began when a restaurant proprietor and everlasting resident returned to Malaysia from India. It has additionally been detected in one other cluster case which began with returnees from the Philippines.
The director general said the strain could mean that existing studies on vaccines may be incomplete or ineffective against the mutation of the virus.
“People need to be wary and take greater precautions because this strain has now been found in Malaysia. The people’s cooperation is very needed so that we can together break the chain of infection from any mutation,” Hisham wrote in a Facebook post.
He added the D614G mutation was discovered by scientists in July and is likely to cause current vaccine research to be incomplete or ineffective towards this mutation.
This mutation has now become the predominant variant in Europe and the US. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that there is no evidence that the strain leads to a more severe disease.
According to a biomedical journal Cell Press, the mutation may not have a major impact on the efficacy of vaccines which are presently being developed.
Earlier, Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert, has warned that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was showing some signs of mutation in a way that may speed the spread of the virus.
Since it was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December last year, scientists have spotted mutations or changes to the coronavirus’ genetic material.
Possible origination theories say it could have spread through the Wuhan's wet market, or through the endangered and widely trafficked Pangolins, among other ways. WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, and a pandemic on March 11.
According to the pandemic data website Worldometer, 21,672,429 people have till now been infected, and 775,275 people have died around the world till now. Vaccine candidates are being developed in various countries, and trials are ongoing.
Meanwhile, Russia has given approval to its home-grown vaccine, even as experts sound alarm on its efficacy. The country produced the Covid-19 vaccine's first batch on August 15, the Interfax news agency quoted the health ministry as saying, hours after the ministry reported the start of manufacturing.
Some scientists said they fear that with this fast regulatory approval Moscow may be putting national prestige before safety amid the global race to develop a vaccine against the disease.