Malaysia detects New COVID-19 strain

MALAYSIA: Malaysia has detected a highly infectious mutation of the virus, it said on Sunday, when the tally of cases stood at 9,200. The Malaysian Institute for Medical Research has detected a D614G type mutation as a result of isolation and culture tests on-Three cases from the Sivagangga patient-under investigation  (PUI) Cluster and one case from the Ulu Tiram Cluster. The mutation called D614G was found in at least three of the 45 cases in a cluster that started from a restaurant owner (Nezar Mohamed Sabur Batca) returning from India and breaching his 14-day home quarantine.

The man has since been sentenced to five months in prison and fined. The strain was also found in another cluster involving people returning from the Philippines. Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this means the community has to be more careful as the Covid-19 virus with the D614G mutation has been detected in Malaysia. It is found to be 10 times easier to infect other individuals and easier to spread. So far, these two clusters have been found to be under-control as a result of the swift public health control actions. The strain could mean that existing studies on vaccines may be incomplete or ineffective against the mutation, said Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah. But the World Health Organization says there’s no evidence the strain leads to a more severe disease. A paper published in Cell Press said the mutation is unlikely to have a major impact on the efficacy of vaccines

currently being developed. 

SO, WHAT IS MUTATION OF VIRUS?

Coronaviruses have all their genetic material in something called RNA (ribonucleic acid). RNA has some similarities to DNA, but they aren’t the same. When viruses infect you, they attach to your cells, get inside them, and make copies of their RNA, which helps them spread. If there’s a copying mistake, the RNA gets changed. Scientists call those changes mutations. These changes happen randomly and by accident. It’s a normal part of what happens to viruses as they multiply and spread. But if a virus has a random change that makes it easier to infect people and it spreads, that strain will become more common.

WHY THIS NAME D614G?

It is because the mutation alters the position of- Amino acid at 614, and from D (aspartic acid) to G (glycine), hence, D-614-G. D614G is one of the deadliest mutation of the coronavirus, It is predominant in several parts of the United States and Europe, two of the regions worst-affected by the coronavirus pandemic.