Brazil variant: Professor shares concerns over coronavirus strain

The coronavirus variant of coronavirus that has emerged from Brazil has fueled further concern among health officials in the UK and abroad. Professor Lawrence Young said that authorities must be “keeping an eye” on all new strains of the virus as experts are seeing “more and more changes.” The University of Warwick Medical School academic also called on the Government to adopt tighter border control measures in order to stamp out infections arising from new Covid-19 strains.

Professor Young told LBC: “I am concerned as these variants are popping up and we are learning more about them we are finding more changes and more changes that are not only more likely to increase the infectiousness of the virus but might also impact on the body’s immune response.

“So we need to learn a lot more about these different variants but we need to keep an eye on them.

Asked by host Eddie Mair if travel to the UK from Brazil needed to be changed, Professor Young replied: “We have had a real problem in this country with border control, haven’t we.

“If you look around the world at the way the virus infection has been stamped out in places not only in south-east Asia but in Australia, New Zealand it is by restricting travel.”

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He continued: “We know from looking at the genetics of the virus at the very beginning, something we actually very good at here in the UK, that a lot of the introductions of infections in March, April last year and indeed in September were due to people travelling back from abroad, particularly from mainland Europe.

“So I think we need to look very hard at border control.

“If there is any hint that now this virus has been imported from Brazil into Japan is going to be more infectious then we should stop people coming from those countries into the UK or at least test them and make sure they isolate for a period.”

Asked if this should happen right away, he replied: “Absolutely, immediately. One of the problems we’ve had is we haven’t been very fast at dealing with things. We have waited too long all the way through this pandemic.

Boris Johnson admits concern over Brazilian coronavirus strain

“We know the way to deal with this virus is to go in hard and to go in fast and I wouldn’t have any hesitation in the same way we immediately restricted travel from South Africa of doing the same in relation to both Brazil and Japan.”

The comments come after the Prime Minister implied a ban on travel to and from Brazil could be introduced in the coming days.

Speaking to the Liason Committee of MPs on Wednesday Mr Johnson said: “We’ve already had tough measures to protect this country from new infections coming in from abroad and we’re taking steps to do that in respect of the Brazilian variant.”

Research is currently ongoing on whether the Brazil variant is more dangerous than other mutations.

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However, warning there was a chance the new strain could render the coronavirus vaccine useless, Mr Johnson admitted there was still very little known about the Brazilian mutation.

He said: “I think it’s fair to say there are still lots of questions we have about that variant and we don’t know, for instance, any more than we know from whether the South African variant is vaccine-resistant.”

Mutations of the virus have been found in Kent here in the UK and in South Africa, with both more transmissible than the original virus.

The strain from Kent is up to 70 percent more contagious and has led to a surge in cases across the UK.

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