A University of Guadalajara research laboratory has detected four cases in Jalisco of a newer coronavirus strain that, while probably not any more lethal or aggressive, might bypass the body’s natural defense memory that affords immunity, and could even render certain vaccines less effective.
Preliminary investigations show the SARS-CoV-2 variant to be similar to the E484K strain that has spread widely across South Africa and is now starting to appear elsewhere, including in Japan, Norway, Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom.
However, only one of the four people infected with the mutation here had been in contact with someone else who had traveled abroad, said Dr. Natali Vega Magaña, head of the Laboratory for Diagnosis in Emerging and Reemerging Diseases (LaDEER) of the University Center for Health Sciences (CUCS).
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