Viral load is 1,000 times higher than other Covid mutations

A new study revealed that the severity of Delta, one of worrying variables (VOC) del COVID-19, related to the viral load it produces in those with it, which is a thousand times greater than that caused by conventional mutations.

This variable has become the biggest obstacle to overcome pandemic Stream. Since your selection in IndiaIn October 2020, the scientific community began to closely monitor it, because unlike other mutations, delta is more transmissible.

What does this mean? When a person contracts delta, it produces many viruses. This is why it has become responsible for the majority of new cases SARS-CoV-2, all over the world.

Until the beginning of this month, the World Health Organization (WHO)Who is the) It is already present in 92 countries, 14 of them are from Latin america, included Mexico.

Research, led by Jing Lu, an epidemiologist from Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in China, analyzed 62 people with this type.

The team assessed the “viral load” that the participants developed. On a daily basis, they recorded the density of viral particles generated in the body, with the aim of knowing the course and changes the infection had undergone over the course of days.

The researchers then compared the participants’ infection patterns to the infection patterns of 63 people with the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, during 2020.

The results, published in the journal “medRxiv”, showed that the delta variant begins to appear four days after exposure to another infected person. Unlike with the traditional variant, which becomes visible after six days.

According to experts, this checks how quickly the variable is repeated. In addition, they found that people with delta had 1,260 times higher viral loads.

Benjamin Colling, epidemiologist at University of Hong Kong, note that the combination of a large number of viruses and a short incubation period makes sense as an explanation for the high delta transmissibility.

“The large amount of virus in the respiratory tract means that super-spreading events are likely to infect more people, and that people can start spreading the virus before they become infected,” he said.

However, the researchers acknowledged that these findings are not definitive and that as studies of Delta continue – in different regions – estimates of viral load will change.

In this context, the specialists agreed that there are still many unanswered questions about the delta variable.

One of them – and the most worrying – has to do with the fact that if the infection increases in severity and if it has the ability to evade Antibodies Produced by vaccines or the disease itself.

“This virus took us by surprise,” they admitted.

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