“We should all be very, very careful. Because it takes very little, a new variant that runs faster, to return to terrible numbers”. On the first day of reopening and of Italy almost entirely ‘yellow zone’, Arnaldo Caruso, president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv), launches an invitation to “caution”. “I’m worried about the excessive ease” documented by some images on the nightlife of the weekend, confesses in an interview with Adnkronos Salute the expert, professor of microbiology and clinical microbiology at the University of Brescia and director of the Asst microbiology laboratory Civil Hospitals.
“The idea is that the virus is undergoing a normal seasonal weakening, but we must not take it for granted – he warns – because any viral strain may emerge that perhaps does not follow this seasonality. Caution is always important”, insists the specialist . “With what we have at home today we are seeing, partly due to the measures adopted, partly because of the season, that things are going well – he observes – but they are going well as long as we are responsible and unfortunately this responsibility does not seem widespread. as it should instead “.
The number one of Italian virologists hopes that “many, many checks will be put in place. All of us should be responsible – Caruso reflects – but we know well that this does not always happen and therefore many more checks will be needed to try to make people think who spontaneously do not it does, because perhaps it does not understand the true danger of this virus “.
As for the so-called Indian variant of the pandemic coronavirus, it must be monitored and studied to understand its possible effects, but at this moment it must not cause alarm, according to Caruso. “With this variant Sars-CoV-2 follows a route already marked by previous variants,” he explains. Mutants that “have all already proven to be, some more or less, neutralizable by the anti-Covid vaccines” currently available. “So to date, I do not see great reasons to think that this variant should not meet the same fate as the others. But I repeat: scientifically it is always necessary to ask ourselves doubts, to be dispelled through research. And we hope that research will comfort us in this. hypothesis “, hopes the expert.
At the level of the viral genome, “the Indian variant combines a mutation in position 484, also common to others such as the South African, and a mutation in position 452, which is relatively rarer – describes Caruso, professor of microbiology and clinical microbiology at the university of Brescia and director of the laboratory of microbiology of the Asst Spedali Civili – Both together is the first time they have seen each other, while they have already seen each other separately. From a practical point of view, these are mutations that occur due to a normal adaptation of the virus to our species “, observes the specialist, specifying that” the virus is not trying to escape anything, neither drugs nor vaccines. It is only trying to better expose its binding site to the cell. And in exposing it better – Caruso points out – in many cases also exposes the neutralization zone better, so much so that the English and Nigerian variants are even more neutralizable “by vaccines.
“In this rush of the virus to evolve spontaneously”, the number one of Italian virologists sees “nothing particularly worrying about the tightness of vaccines. Obviously, however, these are hypotheses – he reiterates – which must be demonstrated as soon as an isolate of the virus is available and the tests will give us a possible confirmation “.
“England has a consortium” to monitor the emergence of new variants of the pandemic coronavirus. “America has a consortium and India has it too. So much so that, despite all the difficulties of such an overpopulated country, it was able to immediately understand that a new viral mutant was circulating and to give news of it. thanks to an active surveillance “on which Italy cannot yet fully count, because” our Consortium is not yet there “. The president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv), which sponsored the project ‘Italian Consortium for the genotyping and phenotyping of Sars-CoV-2’, announced at the end of December, can only acknowledge this with “perplexity”. Then the government crisis, the change of executive and a bureaucratic impasse that does not seem to be unblocked.
“We are all ready”, repeats in an interview with Adnkronos Salute the expert, professor of microbiology and clinical microbiology at the University of Brescia and director of the microbiology laboratory of Asst Spedali Civili.
“These are the times of politics that do not follow those of the pandemic”, and so “we chase the virus instead of preceding it – observes Caruso bitterly – From the information I receive, it seems that there must be a legislative moment to be able to move forward the Our Consortium. Everyone is working to keep it going “, he specifies, but the reality is that” we should have been operational for months, at least provisionally. But politics in this case did not follow us and this, in a pandemic moment , really perplexes “.
“Obviously we hope to contain the entry of new variants in Italy through the ordinary measures of attention at the borders, quarantines, tampons. But it is very important – insists the number one of Italian virologists – and it is increasingly so as he shows us also the emergence of the new “so-called Indian” variant, a very careful monitoring on the territory. A type of surveillance that only the Consortium can do.