6533b7d0fe1ef96bd125aedc
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020.
Hodcroft Emma BZuber MoiraNadeau SarahVaughan Timothy GCrawford Katharine H DAlthaus Christian LReichmuth Martina LBowen John EWalls Alexandra CCorti DavideBloom Jesse DVeesler DavidMateo DavidHernando AlbertoIñaki ComasFernando González-candelasStadler TanjaNeher Richard Asubject
0303 health sciences03 medical and health sciences2019-20 coronavirus outbreakCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)030306 microbiologyResearch councilSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)Political scienceLibrary science030304 developmental biologydescription
A variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in early summer 2020, presumably in Spain, and has since spread to multiple European countries. The variant was first observed in Spain in June and has been at frequencies above 40% since July. Outside of Spain, the frequency of this variant has increased from very low values prior to 15th July to 40-70% in Switzerland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom in September. It is also prevalent in Norway, Latvia, the Netherlands, and France. Little can be said about other European countries because few recent sequences are available. Sequences in this cluster (20A.EU1) differ from ancestral sequences at 6 or more positions, including the mutation A222V in the spike protein and A220V in the nucleoprotein. We show that this variant was exported from Spain to other European countries multiple times and that much of the diversity of this cluster in Spain is observed across Europe. It is currently unclear whether this variant is spreading because of a transmission advantage of the virus or whether high incidence in Spain followed by dissemination through tourists is sufficient to explain the rapid rise in multiple countries.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-10-28 | medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences |