New SARS-Cov-2 Variant B.1.1.529: A Comparison with Previous Viral Variants Identified in The Apulia Region |Biomedgrid

Following the epidemic COVID-19 the emergence of multiple variants has been reported. Mutations of the virus may cause changes in its infectivity and pathogenicity, resulting in the emergence of highly infectious or lethal mutant strains, they may also change the antigenicity of the virus, leading to failures of existing antibody treatments or the vaccine [1-3]. There are several mutations of SARS-CoV-2 genome that have received attention from scientists worldwide. The first mutation of interest was D614G in the Spike protein [4]; strains that harboured this mutation became the dominant strain globally with a prevalence >95% [3]. Successively, a growing interest has been attributed to nucleotide variants identified in the Spike gene because these variants may influence the efficacy of vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies [5,6]. Thus, additional mutations of concern were identified and linked to several Variants of Concern (VOCs) [7] including Alpha (B.1.1.7).