SARS-Cov-2 arrived in the UK and other countries through multiple carriers, according to a major genetic analysis unveiled today.
British researchers found 198 mutations that have occurred independently more than once in the virus from an analysis of 7,500 patients infected with the disease from around the world.
This has enabled them to sketch out a map of the virus development, confirming that the virus only reached humans "late" last year from a common ancestor.
They say it is "most unlikely" it was in circulation long before it was detected.
One off-shoot of the work is to identify stable regions of the virus, suggesting the best targets for drugs or vaccines that might avoid development of resistance.
The researchers say they cannot tell whether mutations are emerging that affect the infectiousness or lethality of the virus.
The study found the diversity of viruses was as great in countries such as in the UK as worldwide – which, they say, suggests it reached the UK multiple times independently.
Researcher Professor Francois Balloux, from the UCL Genetics Institute, London, said:" Mutations in themselves are not a bad thing and there is nothing to suggest SARS-CoV-2 is mutating faster or slower than expected. So far we cannot say whether SARS-CoV-2 is becoming more or less lethal and contagious.”
Fellow researcher Dr Lucy van Dorp said: “There are still very few genetic differences or mutations between viruses. We found that some of these differences have occurred multiple times, independently of one another during the course of the pandemic – we need to continue to monitor these as more genomes become available and conduct research to understand exactly what they do.”
Infection, Genetics and Evolution 6 May 2020; doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2020.104351.
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