The more infections, the greater the possibility of variants, warn specialists

We are entering the fourth year of the covid-19 pandemic. Global vaccination has shown effectiveness in reducing mortality rates in the world, but the outlook is not as desired. Remote reports on the increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections in China set off alarm bells around the world and unleash flows of information without confirmation or scientific support.

This Wednesday, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), reported that “the threat of covid-19 persists. There are still great inequalities in access to tests, treatments and vaccination, SARS-CoV-2 is still a dangerous virus”. He pointed out that currently, approximately 10,000 people die per week as a result of covid-19 infection.

For this reason, Adhanom insisted on the need for the Chinese government to share more prompt, constant and reliable information on hospitalization and fatality cases in its territory, as well as more complete real-time viral sequencing.

Consequence of policy change

Now, with the limited information that is available, what do the specialists in Mexico evaluate? What happens in China can happen in our country?

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Dr. Alejandro Macías, infectologist and researcher, pointed out that the zero transmission policy in China during practically the entire pandemic caused a large part of its population to not have developed hybrid immunity, that is, due to the generation of defenses due to infections in addition to the generated by vaccination.

“Once China abandoned its zero-transmission policy on December 7, it allowed the pandemic to come in full force,” he remarked. “We know that in some regions of China, not even 70% of vaccination is covered (…) and there is no doubt that, if more than 15% of the world’s population lives there, what happens there will affect the world.”

With the little existing information, Macías pointed out, it is estimated that the BF.7 subvariant predominates in China, characterized by a high transmission capacity and evasion of the immunity generated by the vaccines. But the existence of another subvariant of which there are no reports should not be ruled out.

The specialist raised a “conservative” projection of what can happen during the next three months in China. He evaluated that in a population of about 1.4 billion people, it is feasible that about 900 million infections are registered, of which, he calculates, 5% could be hospitalized, that is, about 45 million people. These figures, with the “conservative” estimate, could lead to fatality figures of millions of people.

“Now, we also know that these new variants won’t do the same damage in other countries. In Mexico, people ask me if what is happening in China is going to cause that mortality rate here or the institutional collapse. But no, because in Mexico, the United States and Latin America there is already a high level of natural immunity, but also because of the vaccinated people. So, what happens there is not necessarily going to happen in Mexico (…) but this has not ended in the world, new variants can be generated”.

“Poor natural immunity”

For his part, Dr. Francisco Moreno Sánchez, an internist and infectologist, winner of the 2020 National Health Award, agreed in his remarks: “the greater the number of infections, the greater the possibility of variants. In a population with poor natural immunity due to lack of exposure, it is likely that the most contagious will predominate and not the one that will escape immunity the most”.

However, he opined that “the immunity caused by Chinese vaccines has been questioned. They never accepted the mRNA vaccine, nor were they able to develop it. That may be one of the factors that is causing a high number of serious cases.”

Moreno Sánchez also commented that “the use of antivirals such as Paxlovid was recently approved in that country, which may reduce hospitalizations and deaths, but also cause the appearance of variants resistant to this drug. Hospital saturation may be due to the large number of cases and not due to the aggressiveness of the variants”.

World figures and in Mexico

• Global infections: 662’089,167
• Global deaths: 7’507,564
• Contagions in the EU: 101’035,639
• Deaths in the US: 1,095,135
• Cases in Mexico: 7’252,944
• Deaths in Mexico: 331,197

The Mexican vaccine, in the final phase of development

In our country, according to the weekly report of the Ministry of Health, presented on Tuesday night, between December 27 and January 3, 30,333 new infections and 167 deaths have been confirmed, while in the first week of December, 19,848 infections and 107 deaths were reported. This indicates that in a matter of a month the weekly incidence of infections and deaths from covid-19 has increased in both cases by 35 percent.

More than a year and a half have passed since the federal government announced the start of research for the development of a Mexican-manufactured vaccine, Patria. The director of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, announced in April 2021 that the vaccine would be ready by the end of that same year.

More than a year after the announced date, a couple of weeks ago, Conacyt announced that Patria successfully passed the preclinical trials and phases 1 and 2, so it is now in the final stage of clinical development, that is, in the evaluation of its effect in humans —so far inoculated in more than 500 volunteers—, whose results, he announced, will be registered in the first quarter of this 2023.

The data, so far, show that it is a safe development and capable of producing a protective response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a reinforcement, ”said Conacyt.

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx