Breaking News! Forget About Delta Variant, New Fast Spreading Lambda Variant Is Vaccine Proof And Guarantees That Most Will Develop Disease Severity And Die!

Lambda Variant: Another hilarious moment! While the Western scientific idiots and those following them are simply focusing on antibody based therapeutics and vaccines to solve the COVID-19 crisis, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is simply ahead of the game. A new variant that emerged in Peru and is fast spreading globally has now alarmed scientists as some of the mutations found on it has the ability to totally evade vaccine induced immunity. To make matters, observational studies in Peru shows that most infected or re-infected with the Lambda variant is most likely to develop disease severity with about 12 percent expected to die upon infection!

Medical experts and scientists fear the highly contagious new COVID-19 variant that is now ravaging Peru may be totally resistant to vaccines.
 
The new Lambda variant or C.37, appears to have emerged in Peru last August and is now being blamed for the country having the highest pandemic death rate in the world.
 
To date, the concerning strain has since spread to around 30 countries, mostly in Latin America but also as far as UK, which has recorded at least eight cases, according to British health authorities. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-variants-genomically-confirmed-case-numbers/variants-distribution-of-case-data-2-july-2021
 
It was reported that in Peru, the Lambda variants has accounted for 81 percent of new infections tested for variants since April, according to the World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---15-june-2021
 
This South American nation currently has by far the highest mortality rate in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
 
There, nearly 12 percent of those recorded as being infected end up dying.
 
The Lambda variant was last month declared a Variant of Interest by the World Health Organization (WHO), which noted that it was “associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple countries.” https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
 
WHO said, “Lambda carries a number of mutations” that may have led to “potential increased transmissibility or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies.”
 
Medical scientists in Chile where Lambda is blamed for more than a third of the country’s infections also warned in a recent study, published in a preprint last week, that it appears to evade vaccines better than other strains. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.28.21259673v1.full
 
The researchers from Universidad de Chile performed a pseudotyped v irus neutralization assay and determined the impact of the Lambda variant on infectivity and immune escape using plasma samples from healthcare workers (HCW) from two centers in Santiago who received the two-doses scheme of the inactivated virus vaccine.
 
The study team observed an increased infectivity mediated by the Lambda spike protein that was even higher than that of the D614G (lineage B) or the Alpha and Gamma variants. Compared to the Wild type (lineage A), neutralization was decreased by 3.05-fold for the Lambda variant while it was 2.33-fold for the Gamma variant and 2.03-fold for the Alpha variant.
 
The study findings indicate that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant of interest confer increased infectivity and immune escape from neutralizing antibodies elicited by vaccines. These data reinforce the idea that massive vaccination campaigns in countries with high SARS-CoV-2 circulation must be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance allowing the identification of new isolates carrying spike mutations and immunology studies aimed to determine the impact of these mutations in immune escape and vaccines breakthrough.
 
Numerous other studies underway that have yet to be published also are indicating that the lambda variant is even far more resistant to all the current COVID-19 vaccines including the mRNA based vaccines.
 
Corresponding authors of the Chile Study- Dr Ricardo Soto-Rifo and Dr  Fernando Valiente from the Department of Virology and Biomedical Cellular Studies at Chile Unversity told Thailand Medical News, “Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralizing antibodies and increased infectivity. That could explain why it has been able to take hold despite Chile undergoing a massive vaccination program. Considering that this variant has rapidly spread in Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina, we believe that Lambda has a considerable potential to become a variant of concern.”
 
Dr Jeff Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK added, “One reason why it is hard to make sense of the threat from Lambda, using computational and lab data, is that it has rather an unusual set of mutations, compared with other variants.”

The Lambda variants have a unique pattern of seven mutations in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells.
 
Researchers are particularly intrigued by one mutation called L452Q, which is similar to the L452R mutation believed to contribute to the high infectiousness of the Delta variant. Other mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralizing antibodies and increased infectivity researchers are warning.


Amino acid mutations of SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant plotted on a genome map of SARS-CoV-2 with a focus on the spike.

A Brazilian study published on a preprint server to date is the only study that has sequenced the new variant in detail and identified some of the mutations on it. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.21.21259241v1
 
The sequencing cum genomic study revealed that the Lambda or C.37 variant is defined by a deletion (Δ3675- 3677) in open reading frame 1a (ORF1a) of SARS-CoV-2. The ORF1a gene codes for a protein that undergoes proteolytic cleavage before it goes on to make nonstructural viral proteins.
 
This deletion has also been identified in the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant that emerged in the UK, the Beta (B.1.351) variant that emerged in South African, and the Gamma (P.1) variant that emerged in Brazil.
 
Interestingly the Lambda variant also contained a novel deletion (Δ246-252) and multiple nonsynonymous mutations (G75V, T76I, L452Q, F490S, D614G, and T859N) in the gene that encodes the viral spike protein. The spike is the main surface structure the virus uses to bind to and infect host cells.
 
The study also revealed that the mutations L452Q and F490S are present in the spike receptor-binding domain (RBD), which mediates the initial stage of infection by binding to the host cell receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).
 
It should be noted that the F490S mutation has previously been associated with reduced susceptibility to antibody neutralization.
 
The study team said that in addition to these eight C.37-defining mutations, 19 mutations were also present that have already been described in other members of the lineage.
 
More studies are currently underway on the Lambda variant.
 
What is concerning however is that the Lambda variant is fast appearing in many countries. In some Asian and South East Asian countries however, they do not have the expertise and capabilities to identify emerging variants and the Lambda variant could already be gaining a foothold.
 
Until a more serious effort is focused on identifying or developing a proper combination of antivirals and therapeutic drugs to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic, a greedy and unethical focus on half-baked vaccines and antibody therapeutics that are being promoted by the United States and the United Kingdom are only going to help give rise to more potent and antibody evading SARS-CoV-2 variants.  
 
Researchers are also warning that a scenario of a potent variant emerging soon that will not only be immune evasive completely but may also cause accelerated and fatal ADE conditions in those already vaccinated is not farfetched.
 
In the meanwhile let’s watch the fun that the Lambda variant is going to bring to the world while it is still in the midst of grasping on how to deal with the current Delta variant threat.
 
For the more on the Lambda Variant, keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.