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Lambda strain of COVID-19 causing grave concern

Scientists fear that a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is rapidly spreading in Peru may be resistant to vaccines.

The Lambda mutation appears to have emerged in Peru last August and is now being blamed for the country having the highest pandemic death rate in the world.

The strain has since spread to about 30 countries, mostly in Latin America, but also as far as the UK, which has recorded at least eight cases.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there’s no known case of the Lambda strain in the United States.

The World Health Organization says Lambda has accounted for 81 percent of new infections tested for variants in Peru since April.

Johns Hopkins University data reveal that the South American nation currently has by far the highest mortality rate in the world.

Nearly 10 per cent of those recorded as being infected end up dying, with the death rate of nearly 600 for every 100,000 citizens almost double that of the next nation, Hungary.

Lambda was last month declared a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization, which noted that it was associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple countries.

Scientists in Chile — where Lambda is blamed for more than a third of  the country's infections — also warned in a recent study that it appears to evade vaccines better than other strains.

 

                                                                                                                   

 

 

                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 



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