Worrying Delta variant Covid-19 difficulties raise urgency of vaccine roll-outs
14 June, 2021
As the Delta variant causes a surge in coronavirus numbers in the UK, in the united states where in fact the variant originated, India, it's been connected with several cases of gangrene.
The gangrene, stroke and other related symptoms are associated with hypercoagulation, a tendency for the blood to clot easier than usual.
With India’s second wave leading to the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the united states to surpass 350,000, the emergence of the particularly unpleasant complications has been an additional cause of alarm.
“There’s definitely a rise in the numbers of strokes and gangrene with this variant. Last year the caseload was the same in my own hospital, but I’m seeing more of the cases this season,” Dr Ganesh Manudhane, a consultant in cardiology at Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai, said.
In the past 90 days, Dr Manudhane saw about 10 patients with symptoms linked to hypercoagulation, often involving gangrene, the localised death of tissue.
Reports say patients experienced to have fingers and even feet amputated, but Dr Manudhane said often their lives can't be saved.
“We have completed amputations, however in some of these cases, the patients are experiencing severe pneumonia. The mortality is saturated in such cases,” he said.
A broad collections of symptoms have reportedly been associated with hypercoagulation, including stomach pain due to clots in arteries supplying the intestines. There are also reports of hearing loss and joint pain among patients influenced during India’s second wave.
As has been widely reported in recent weeks, a fungal infection called mucormycosis, generally known as black fungus, has killed hundreds of Covid-19 patients in India during the past few months. Other countries including Pakistan and Russia are also affected.
“There has to be some association with this variant and mucormycosis,” Dr Manudhane said. “This past year we never found these problems of fungus, but this season we’re finding these problems.”
The Delta variant was initially detected in India in October but is currently present in more than 60 countries and, if the UK’s experience are anything to put into practice, it may become much more common in many of them.
In early April it accounted first per cent of UK cases, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday that 91 % of new infections were caused by the variant.
The variant has also been blamed for surges in cases in the north-west, that could delay a final lifting of lockdown restrictions across England, with the united states having recently experienced its biggest rise in cases since early this past year.
Public Health England said the Delta variant is apparently 64 per cent more transmissible than its Alpha counterpart, that was first seen in southern England in September.
That would mean the Delta variant spreads a lot more than doubly easily as the initial coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan in China in December 2019.
What sort of mutations carried by the variant alter how viral particles bind to receptors on cells are believed to account for changes in transmissibility and symptoms.
Although the Delta variant spreads drastically more easily, its capability to evade the protection conferred by vaccines appears to be more modest.
In the US, where no more than six per cent of cases are due to the variant, the federal government reported that laboratory tests found only a “modest decrease” in the ability of extracts from the blood of previously vaccinated or infected individuals to neutralise any risk of strain.
Vaccine efficacy
Similarly, two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are thought to be 88 per cent effective at protecting against symptomatic illness in those infected with the Delta variant, compared to 93 per cent with the Alpha variant.
With the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease after two doses is reduced from 66 % with the Alpha variant to 60 % with the Delta variant.
Just five per cent of men and women in English hospitals after being infected with the Delta variant are fully vaccinated, indicating a full span of vaccination remains impressive against the variant.
However, one dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines offers only 33 per cent protection against the variant, compared to 50 % protection against the Alpha variant, according to figures from Public Health England.
Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US president and director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the variant could be linked to a higher risk of more serious disease and hospital admission.
That is the case in the UK, with Public Health England data indicating there have been 2.61 times the chance of hospital admission and 1.67 times the risk of admission to a major accident and emergency department when compared to Alpha variant.
Clinicians reported different symptoms among recently infected people, according to Prof Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia in the UK.
“You’re getting more cold-like symptoms, sore throat and sneezing,” he said. “This doesn’t surprise me because in the event that you look at the other human coronaviruses - there are mainly four - they essentially cause the normal cold in almost all of us.”
He said that harm to the sense of smell, among the symptoms of coronavirus infection, does not seem to be reported now.
Changes in the type of symptoms seen most commonly may, though, not be simply right down to changes in the way the Delta variant influences people, but could be because persons have previously been infected or had a vaccine.
In India, the Delta variant is apparently linked to an elevated proportion of younger persons falling sick, according to Dr Manudhane.
“We used to see this past year [people] above 60,” he said. “Now we’re seeing 40 to 60 years and a very young age - 20 to 40. Even younger patients are presenting with serious symptoms.”
While significant impacts from the Delta variant seem to be to be limited to a few countries up to now, experts are concerned that it may become increasingly common given its increased infectiousness.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com