The variant known as the Lambda, which has largely gone unnoticed for the past nine months. Now it is causing almost all new infections in Peru.
What we know about the Lambda variant
According to National Geographic, Lambda (also known as C.37) was first detected in Peru in August 2020. AND it has spread to 29 countries, many in Latin America. And, as of January 20, 2021, 668 Lambda infections have been reported in the United States.
In Peru, Lambda is now responsible for more than 90 percent of new COVID-19 cases, a sharp increase of less than 0.5 percent in December.. The country has already suffered the worst mortality in the world due to COVID-19. The disease has killed approximately 0.54 percent of the population.
Poor vaccine efficacy may be partly to blame
The Lambda variant likely caused the high number of infections during the second wave between late March and April. Said the Minister of Health of Peru, Óscar Ugarte, in a press conference.
In neighboring Chile, where the main vaccine is CoronaVac from China, Lambda accounts for 31 percent of cases sequenced in the last 60 days. The high number of cases is occurring despite the fact that 58.6 percent of Chile’s population is fully vaccinated and another 10 percent have received a single dose.
The poor efficacy of the vaccine may be part of the culprit. A study from the University of Chile found that a single dose of the CoronaVac vaccine was only 3 percent effective. But that increased to 56.5 percent after both doses.
What the experts say:
“The reason why Chile has such high infection rates is puzzling and is probably due to several factors. Due to its high vaccination coverage, the restrictions were relaxed a bit too early, and that could have led to an increase in cases ”. Says Pablo Tsukayama, a microbiologist at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.
It was Tsukayama who first saw the Lambda variant after routinely sequencing the samples deposited between January and March 2021.
“But it is also possible that the main variants in circulation, Gamma and Lambda. They have some immune escape properties that lead to reduced protection of vaccines ”.
It is already a variant of concern
The possibility that Lambda could bypass the immune system led to World Health Organization to designate it as Variant of Interest (VOI) on June 14.
The WHO categorizes a virus as VOI when the genetic changes in the virus are so significant that it can affect its transmissibility, severity of the disease. As well as its immune escape, diagnosis or therapy; and it spreads rapidly through a community.
Latin America represents more than 20 percent of the world’s cases
While Latin America has only eight percent of the world’s population, it accounts for more than 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases. As well as 32 percent of COVID-19 deaths worldwide. Although the region still reports more than half of the deaths recorded globally, only one in 10 Latin Americans has been fully vaccinated. In countries like Honduras and Guatemala, the figure is less than 1 percent.
“I think we are about to see another critical situation in the coming weeks in Latin America,” says Alfonso Rodríguez-Morales, epidemiologist and vice president of the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases. This is because in some countries vaccination programs have not yet fully vaccinated more than 5 to 10 percent of their population “and that is very critical.”
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