Gorgas Institute detects COVID-19 cases with highly contagious D614G mutation
The mutation of the new coronavirus that arrived in Panama, called D614G, has doubled in recent months according to a report from the Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies.
The Institute posted on Twitter that 70% of cases were found with the D614G mutation, but this variant is not the one found in England, however it is also highly contagious.
Researcher Alexander Martínez, Head of the Gorgas Genomics and Proteomics Research department, highlighted that this percentage is the product of a random sampling of cases in December of 75 sequenced samples.
That implies that this variant doubled the proportion of people it has potentially infected. In July it was a little less than 30%, explained Martínez.
He added that they seek to evaluate the places where more cases occurred, and thus explore whether there was a responsible variant, either those described in the United Kingdom or South Africa, and a variant that we already knew was in Panama, however with a much higher frequency.
On the other hand, Gorgas reported that there have been good results with saliva tests and that probably in a few months these tests can be used for diagnosis mainly by PCR.
Researcher Alexander Martínez, Head of the Gorgas Genomics and Proteomics Research department, highlighted that this percentage is the product of a random sampling of cases in December of 75 sequenced samples.
That implies that this variant doubled the proportion of people it has potentially infected. In July it was a little less than 30%, explained Martínez.
He added that they seek to evaluate the places where more cases occurred, and thus explore whether there was a responsible variant, either those described in the United Kingdom or South Africa, and a variant that we already knew was in Panama, however with a much higher frequency.
On the other hand, Gorgas reported that there have been good results with saliva tests and that probably in a few months these tests can be used for diagnosis mainly by PCR.