RE: Scancell19 Mar 2020 09:03
Telegraph
A team of Singapore-based scientists has uncovered the first glimmer of hope that the COVID-19 virus could be mutating into a less virulent strain after discovering key protein suspected to affect the virus’s transmission and severity has disappeared in some patients.
In an academic paper, still under peer review but provided to The Australian, the Duke National University of Singapore team reported the protein “deletion” discovered in eight Singapore patients between February 9 and March 2 was consistent with those found at the tail end of the 2003 SARS outbreak, and could signal a weakening of the disease.
Duke NUS team leader Wang Linfa, an Australian virologist who sequenced and named Australia’s bat-borne Hendra horse virus, said the discovery was significant because “it’s important for the world to know that, just like SARS and MERS, (COVID-19) can change”.
Among the first hallmarks of the novel coronavirus identified early by World Health Organisation scientists was that it was genetically more stable than its severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome predecessors.