On December 1 4, 2020, the country announced that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease of COVID-19 is a new mutation in the nature of the virus, and the spread of the disease has been found in the southeast of England. Knowing that the new mutated COVID-19 virus is almost twice as contagious as SARS-CoV-2 viruses, there is a lot of information about this mutated virus and In order to find out what is currently being done to obtain a vaccine for Myanmar, I would like to recap what Daily Eleven newspaper contacted Dr. Khin Khin Gyi, Director of the Central Infectious Disease Control Department of the Ministry of Health and Sports.
“The COVAX group must be 20 percent free. Another 20 percent will buy. There are also things that have been done to connect and buy from other countries. . ”
Q ■ First, please explain about the new, fast-spreading mutant COVID-19 virus that is currently happening in England.
Answer: Compared to the original SARS-CoV-2, the mutated virus found in the southeast of England is a change in a protein called the spike protein in the point of its surface protein. We call it N501Y. The place is N501Y. We call the modified virus VUI-202012/01. There, it is more contagious than other SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Here, COVID-19 is a disease. The virus that causes COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2. A genetic variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If it’s because of this virus, it’s more contagious. As for how easy it is to spread the infection, in terms of percentage, it is said that it is easy to spread the infection from 50 to 70 percent. I want to be clear here that 50 to 70 percent is not 50 to 70 times. This is because people think wrongly. In terms of times, 1.5 times than before. It means that the infection is 7 times faster than 1 percent. This rapid spread is because if the virus enters the body, we have a door. ACE2, the receptor in that gateway, is less ACE2 in children compared to children and adults. Because of this, children usually have fewer infections and are less likely to suffer from the negative effects of infections. But now the new strain of the virus has the ability to make this ACE2 entrance smoother, smoother, and faster. That’s why the infection is so fast. Is the infection getting worse? Or how it can cause death and how serious the disease can be, the evidence has not yet been found. This is what scholars are still searching for. It is understood that an investigation is being conducted.
Q ■ Now that the new mutated COVID-19 strain is said to be more infectious in children, please explain about that.
Answer: In the past, there were no cases of disease in children, so when we studied the vaccine, when we developed the vaccine, children were not our target group, so we did not vaccinate children. Because the vaccine has to reach the public as soon as possible, the number of volunteers participating in the clinical phase I, II, III is very small for children and pregnant women. Almost no. Because the number is small, if the vaccine is given to children, How safe is it to inject in pregnant women? Especially children. the safety of the vaccine; safety; I don’t know the effectiveness. Because I don’t know, the Pfizer vaccine should only be given to those 16 and older. In the case of the Moderna Vaccine, it is specifically specified that it must be given to people aged 18 and over. Because these vaccines have not been tested in children. Now that the mutation found in England may cause more infections in children, it is a point of caution. It was said that children can be infected with COVID after comparing it with the previous virus, SARS-CoV-2. Here, we don’t want to assume that children are more contagious than adults. It means that this virus has increased from a situation where there was not much infection in children before. I want to know this too. Here, our Ministry of Health and Sports, The Medical Research Department has been able to carry out research on the entire genome of SARS-CoV-2, which is spreading in Myanmar, in the last three months. As a result of this action, research has been able to show that the current outbreak in Rakhine in Myanmar is D614G. Medical research will continue to examine the entire genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is currently spreading in Myanmar. This habit
