The British government in charge of the G7’s rotating presidency announced on Sunday calling an “emergency meeting” of your health ministers To address the issue of the Omicron version of the coronavirus.

,An emergency meeting of G7 health ministers will be convened on Monday, 29 November, to discuss Micron’s development.The UK Department of Health said in a statement after several cases were reported in Europe.

WHO said on Friday that the newly discovered strain is A worrying version, but scientists are still trying to assess its dangerousness,

The United Kingdom is one of the countries that has declared omicron cases in its territory, including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, although Most European countries have stopped flights from southern African countries, where the first variant was identified.

The head of the World Health Organization in Africa on Sunday urged countries to follow the science rather than impose flight restrictions in an effort to contain the new version. “With the Omicron variant now detected in different regions of the world, the imposition of travel restrictions targeted to Africa undermines global solidarity,” said WHO regional director general Matshidiso Moeti.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday became the latest leader in the region to condemn the flight ban and the economic damage it has caused to the countries affected.

For her part, the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, announced in Riga this Sunday that The new version of the coronavirus opened a “race against time” and underscored the need to “buy time” by expediting vaccination and reducing contacts.,

“We take this omicron very seriously. We are now in a race against time, because we don’t know everything about this version, but it is kind of a concern,” he said, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and said in a joint press conference with Latvian President Krisjanis Karins.

stated that Science needed between two and three weeks to have a “complete picture” on the “characteristics of the mutation” of this new variant., Therefore, he said, it is necessary to “use the time” to take precautionary action, noting that the “top priority” now is to reduce contacts, vaccinate and administer booster doses “as much as possible” and practice social distancing. Have to follow the rules. , hygiene and use of masks.

The first image of the Omicron version shows many more mutations than Delta. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has many more mutations than the delta strain, according to its first “image”, created and published by the Bambino Gesso Hospital in Rome.

In this three-dimensional “image”, similar to cartography, “It is clear that the Omicron variant has many more mutations than the delta variant. [que presenta asimismo un gran número de mutaciones], mostly concentrated in a region of protein that interacts with human cellsExplained the team of researchers in a statement published this Sunday. A research team from Rome’s prestigious Bambino Gesso Hospital published the study that shows what the new strain of COVID-19 is like.

,This does not automatically mean that these variations are more dangerous, just that the virus has once again adapted to the human species, generating another variant.”, specified the researchers. “Other studies will tell us whether this adaptation is neutral, less dangerous or more dangerous.”

The research team from the prestigious Bambino Gesso establishment focused on searching for mutations at the level of the “three-dimensional structure of the spike protein”, explained AFP Claudia Alteri, professor of clinical microbiology and researcher at the University of Milan. The above Roman hospital.

This protein, which is the “most carefully studied” part of the virus, is “responsible for the recognition of the human receptor and the entry of the virus into cells.”“It is in the spike that monoclonal antibodies and, of course, vaccines act,” he emphasized.

The image was created “from a study of the sequences of this new variant contributed to the scientific community” and primarily from “Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong”.

,This image, which represents a bit of a map of all types, describes the Omicron mutation but does not define the role“According to Claudia Alteri, they have.

“From now on, through laboratory experiments, it will be important to define whether a combination of these may have an effect on transmission or the efficacy of vaccines, for example,” he said.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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