The Lambda COVID-19 Variant: What Do We Know?

TORONTO – A COVID-19 variant of interest recently named by the World Health Organization is under close scrutiny as more cases are detected in several countries, and amid concerns that ‘it carries mutations that could make it more resistant to neutralizing antibodies.

The newly labeled Lambda variant, or C.37, was first detected in August 2020 in Peru and was being watched as an alert for some time before its new designation. As of mid-June, the variant had been detected in 29 countries or territories with a particularly high prevalence in South America.

“Lambda has been associated with substantial rates of community transmission in several countries, with increasing prevalence over time alongside increased incidence of COVID-19,” the World Health Agency wrote in its Weekly epidemiological update published June 15.

“Lambda carries a number of mutations with suspected phenotypic implications, such as potential increased transmission or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies.”

WHO said there is currently limited evidence on what the impact of these mutations will mean and that more studies are needed to better understand how to contain the spread and how vaccines will resist the variant.

WHO virologist Jairo Mendez-Rico told German Deutsche Welle so far nothing indicates that the lambda variant is more dangerous or leads to higher mortality.

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Pablo Tsukayama, a virologist at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, told the German broadcaster that given Peru’s difficulties in containing the pandemic, it was no surprise that the variant started there and has now taken hold. .

The South American country has experienced more deaths per capita than any other country since the start of the pandemic, with 586 deaths per 100,000 people as of July 5. This is a figure which is almost 89% higher than Hungary, the second most serious country by the same measure, with 310.5 deaths per 100,000. Now, more than 80% of new infections sequenced since April Peru are associated with the Lambda variant, according to Peruvian authorities.

About a third of new infections in Chile in the past two months have also turned out to be the Lambda variant – circulating at about the same rate as the Gamma variant, first detected in Brazil.

In the UK, Lambda has been designated as Variant under investigation (VUI) on June 23, after half a dozen cases were identified across the country. That number now stands at eight. Public Health England (PHE) says there is currently “no evidence that this variant causes more serious disease or makes currently deployed vaccines less effective.”

Since July 5, there is no known case of the Lambda variant in Canada, although publicly available data focuses on the variants of concern.

Although there is still little research on the Lambda variant, Brazilian researchers wrote in a pre-printing study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, that they believe it has “considerable potential to become a VOC (variant of concern)”, while another pre-print study suggests that this variant is more transmissible than the Alpha and Gamma variants, and that CoronaVac, also known as the Sinovac vaccine, was less effective against it.