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Describing Indian variant as double or triple mutant a misnomer
Dr Maurer-Stroh said the terms double mutant or triple mutant variants used to describe the virus strains rampaging in India are therefore a misnomer, but broadly refer to the more significant mutations found in those variants.
Fortunately, there are only three VOCs right now. However, there are several variants of interest (VOI) which appear to exhibit some of the characteristics of a VOC, but without sufficient evidence for the moment. That may change.
They include the two variants first detected in India that are causing the huge surge in cases over the past month, he added.
SINGAPORE - The Sars-CoV-2 virus that sparked the Covid-19 pandemic has undergone more than 6,600 unique spike protein mutations, said Dr Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, executive director of the Bioinformatics Institute at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A Star).
Viruses mutate whenever there is a mistake in the replication process. This could result from an addition, a deletion or a change to its genetic code.
If that mistake increases its survival prospects, more copies of that wrong replication will survive, and sometimes overwhelm the original version.
For example, the D614G mutation which started to rise sharply in February last year is now found in all samples of the virus, no matter which variant they are.