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re: Baby & Child Die of Kawasaki Disease-OFFSHOOT of Covid-19 >Affects Children
Covid-19 Found in Semen of Infected Men, > Chance of Sexual Transmission say Chinese Doctors
Scientists Concerned That Coronavirus is Adapting to Humans Mutations in Some Strains May Help the Virus Spread into a More Dangerous Virus
The Guardian UK, 11 MAY 2020
Chinese researchers who tested the sperm of men infected with Covid-19 found a minority had the new coronavirus in their semen. According to the researchers, this opened up a small chance the disease could be sexually transmitted, though this claim has been questioned by other academics in the wake of the findings being published.
Such commentators have noted that while viral genome may be found in body secretions, it must be new and active to be infectious. It is unclear from the Chinese study whether the researches found old traces, or active new virus.
The study – by doctors at China’s Shangqiu municipal hospital of 38 men hospitalised with the disease – found that six of them(16%), tested positive for Sars-CoV-2 in their semen.
The researchers said that while the findings were preliminary, and based on only a small number of infected men, more research is needed to see whether sexual transmission might play a role in the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Further studies are required with respect to the detailed information about virus shedding, survival time and concentration in semen,” the team wrote in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“If it could be proved that Sars-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually ... [that] might be a critical part of the prevention,” they said, “especially considering the fact that Sars-CoV-2 was detected in the semen of recovering patients.”
Independent experts said the findings were interesting but should be viewed with caution and in the context of other small studies that have not found the new coronavirus in sperm.
Will Covid-19 Mutate into a More Dangerous Virus? Scientists Concerned That Coronavirus is Adapting to Humans...
Researchers Have Observed Mutations in Some Strains That May Help the Virus Spread
“This is an early warning! We need to maintain our surveillance so we are not caught out by deploying a vaccine that only works against some strains.”
Scientists have found evidence for mutations in some strains of the coronavirus that suggest the pathogen may be adapting to humans after spilling over from bats.
The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stress that it is unclear how the mutations affects the virus, but since the changes arose independently in different countries they may help the virus spread more easily.
The spike mutations are rare at the moment but Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases and a senior author on the study, said their emergence highlights the need for global surveillance of the virus so that more worrying changes are picked up fast.
“This is exactly what we need to look out for,” Hibberd said. “People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”
Studies of the virus revealed early on that the shape of its spike protein allowed it to bind to human cells more efficiently than Sars, a related virus that sparked an outbreak in 2002. The difference may have helped the latest coronavirus infect more people and spread rapidly around the world.
Scientists will be concerned if more extensive mutations in the spike protein arise, not only because they may alter how the virus behaves. The spike protein is the main target of leading vaccines around the world, and if it changes too much those vaccines may no longer work. Other potential therapies, such as synthetic antibodies that home in on the spike protein, could be less effective, too.
“This is an early warning,” Hibberd said. “Even if these mutations are not important for vaccines, other mutations might be and we need to maintain our surveillance so we are not caught out by deploying a vaccine that only works against some strains.”
The scientists analysed 5,349 coronavirus genomes that have been uploaded to two major genetics databases since the outbreak began. By studying the genetic makeup of the viruses, the scientists worked out how it has diversified into different strains and looked for signs that it was adapting to its human host.
In an unpublished study that has yet to be peer reviewed, the researchers identified two broad groups of coronavirus that have now spread globally. Of the two spike mutations, one was found in 788 viruses around the world, with the other present in only 32.
The study shows that, until January, one group of coronaviruses in China escaped detection because they had a mutation in the genetic region that early tests relied on. More recent tests detect all of the known types of the virus.
Coronavirus was ALSO found in human faeces more than a month after patients test negative
Last month, an international team of scientists used genetic analyses to show that the coronavirus likely originated in batsand was NOT made in a lab as some conspiracy theorists have claimed.
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