TORONTO -- Infectious disease researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. are using genome sequencing to track down new variants of COVID-19.
Canada now has a number of cases of the highly contagious variant of coronavirus that was first found in the United Kingdom in September. Researchers say they were able to identify the new variant through genome sequencing, which offers genetic information about an organism’s DNA.
“Everything about the virus’ biology is controlled by its DNA. Even the tools we use to diagnose you when we do a nasal swab is based on DNA, such as the PCR test,” Dr. Andrew McArthur, an associate professor and computational biologist for infectious disease research at McMaster University, told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday. “The more you study that DNA, the more you can understand its biology, how it infects, how it makes people sick and how it moves around.”
“All pathogens mutate over time and become diverse and have strains or variants and so you constantly have to do surveillance to make sure none of those variants have properties that are particularly frightening,” he added.
According to the Canadian COVID Genomics Network, only about five per cent of cases are screened for the different variants in Canada. Because genome sequencing is considerably more expensive than a clinical COVID-19 test, McArthur says that Canada cannot afford to isolate every positive COVID-19 case to screen for the new variant. For this reason, he suggests researchers work with epidemiologists to build a strong monitoring strategy.
“We know that this virus travels and it's hard to contain. So there’s no real surprise that it spread globally,” McArthur says. “This particular variant in the U.K. has 23 mutations, which is a much higher rate than we’re used to seeing. Some of them we’re in biologically interesting places that could change the behaviour of the vaccine.”
As new vaccines are being approved and rolled out globally, there are questions about how they could work for different variants of coronavirus. Some researchers are wondering whether these variants can outsmart the vaccines that took months and billions of dollars to create.
“Because we have been fighting this for so long we have the skills to rapidly evaluate. It does not look like this strain is anymore dangerous, but the preliminary evidence suggests it is more infectious and will be harder to control,” McArthur says. “So you really need to respond quickly. I think a conservative response to shut things down while we quickly understand the biology was a reasonable response.”
On Dec. 20, Canada announced that it would temporarily ban travel from the U.K. to help stop the spread of the new variant. That travel ban was later extended until at least Jan. 6, 2021.
