The warehouse was converted into an isolation area for infected people during the 1918 flu pandemic. Photo: According to Live Science “The research results, although not directly applicable to the Covid-19 pandemic, show that humans can eventually overcome their variants. This is being expected by the world in the context of the corona virus outbreak. evolved with many dangerous mutations today,” evolutionary biologist Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer, lead author of the study, told Live Science. According to Spencer, as now, when focusing on studying the virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, the research team questioned whether its new variants worked differently from the original? Since then, the team has studied six human lungs dating from the pandemic years of 1918, which are preserved in formalin at pathological archives in Germany and Austria. The researchers determined that three of the six sample lungs – two from young soldiers who died in Berlin, the other from a young woman who died in Munich – contained the 1918 flu virus. “The virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic is still around today. But it’s more attenuated, mainly because we are descendants of people who survived the outbreak 103 years ago. Because So we’ve inherited some form of genetic immunity,” explains Calvignac-Spencer. Estimates suggest that the 1918 strain of influenza infected about 1 billion people, while the global population was only 2 billion. About 50-100 million people may have died in three consecutive outbreaks then. The first wave of the pandemic occurred in early 1918, it was less deadly than later waves: “The preserved lungs of two German soldiers were determined to be dead at this time”, the research team at the Institute of Robert Koch confirmed. The researchers extracted viral RNA from those lung samples. Both German soldiers died on the same day and when decoding the genome of the virus that killed them there was almost no difference. Spencer added: “But the form of the flu virus found in the soldiers’ lungs, is somewhat genetically different from the form of the virus that infected the young woman who died in Munich. Presumably, the woman. did not survive a subsequent outbreak.” The scientists also compared viral genomes from the US and Germany, and conducted laboratory studies with synthetic copies of virus samples. They wanted to learn to assess the infectivity and replication ability of different strains inside cells. The findings of German scientists also show that the 1918 flu virus has mutated to make the next outbreak stronger and more dangerous than the previous one, by evolving to overcome the human ability to “defence”. The genetic mutations that emerged between the first and second waves may have made the virus better adapted for human-to-human transmission, rather than between birds, its natural host. The other mutation may have changed the way the virus interacts with a human protein called MxA, which helps regulate the body’s immune response to new pathogens. Although the scientists are not sure how the variants changed the “strength” of the virus, “it can be predicted that these changes helped the virus avoid one of the mechanisms by which cells respond.” to kill the flu virus,” Calvignac-Spencer said. The evolution of the virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic has similarities to the current Covid-19 pandemic, such as consecutive outbreaks with many different strains, and the following outbreaks are more dangerous than the previous one. . Thanks to the advancement of science, today when understanding the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers can better understand the 1918 influenza pandemic: “The more we understand about the current pandemic, that The more we can understand the pandemic in the past, rather than vice versa,” Calvignac-Spencer emphasized. One significant advance is that researchers have been able to accurately sequence the viral genome in human tissue preserved in formalin for more than 100 years – something that has hitherto been thought to be very difficult. “Thanks to new techniques, the study ended up being much easier than we expected,” added Calvignac-Spencer, adding: “We can now sequence the viral genome from infected humans. buried in permafrost for up to 1,000 years, because the cold can help preserve DNA even longer.” The team of German scientists also wanted to sequence viral genomes that could have been stored in the bodies of ancient Egyptian mummies – the earliest mummies are about 5,000 years old.”The mummies were prepared to prevent biological processes, and that’s exactly what we want. So we will also embark on research to better understand other diseases of the past,” the German scientist said. about the group’s future plans.

Illustration. (Source: AP) According to updated data of Worldometers, as of 8:30 a.m. on April 8 (Vietnam time), the world recorded a total of 133,674,314 cases and 2,900,311 deaths caused by Covid-19. Of which, notably, India recorded a new record of the number of Covid-19 cases per day, with 126,315 cases, the highest level since the outbreak to date; while Brazil still records more than 3,700 Covid-19 deaths per day. Specifically, in the past day, the world recorded an additional 650,723 cases and 12,957 deaths due to Covid-19. India is the country with the highest number of Covid-19 cases per day in the world, followed by Brazil (90,973 cases), USA (75,183 cases), Turkey (54,740 cases), Argentina (22,039 cases). , Iran (20,954 cases), … In terms of Covid-19 deaths per day, Brazil is the leading country in the world with 3,733 cases, followed by the US (873 cases), India (684 cases), Poland (638 cases), Italy (627 cases ), Mexico (603 cases), … According to Worldometers, as of 8:30 am on April 8 (Vietnam time), the world has a total of 107,797,186 Covid-19 patients recovered while still 22,976,817 patients are being treated. In Germany, the SARS-CoV-2 virus variant detected in the UK is spreading strongly, with most of the new cases in Berlin and many other states being this variant. Of about 5,300 samples tested positive for Covid-19 in Berlin from March 29 to 4-4, the number of samples detected by the variant in the UK accounted for 86%. One month ago, the prevalence of this variant was less than 50% of cases. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced last week that the average UK variant infection rate is 88%. Two other variants discovered in South Africa and in Brazil have also appeared in Germany, but have not spread as strongly as the British variant. The Cuban government announced the results of the latest study showing that up to five genetic variants and six mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are present in the Caribbean island nation, including The strain was discovered in South Africa and the UK, and is highly infectious. According to the report, the above study was conducted between March and September 2020, showing that the variant of SARS-CoV-2 that appeared mainly in Cuba was D614G, which was derived from the original version being played. appeared in Wuhan (Wuhan), China for the first time. However, between the end of December 2020 and the end of March 2021, Cuban scientists identified a total of five variants and six mutants, of which variant D614G was reduced, in when the variants were discovered in California and South Africa (which appeared in Cuba in January) again increased sharply. In addition, the western Cuban provinces such as La Habana, Mayabeque and Pinar del Rio were the ones with the highest number of virus variants and mutations. Meanwhile, the National Infectious Diseases Institute of Japan (NIID) also analyzed data related to the new variant of the first detected SARS-CoV-2 virus in the UK, within 50 days from date. 1-2 to 22-3. The results showed that the spread of variant SARS-CoV-2 was 1.32 times higher than that of conventional strains, especially in Osaka, Hyogo, and Miyagi prefectures. From March 31 to April 6, Japan recorded 208 new cases of SARS-CoV-2, of which 75 cases were recorded in Osaka. According to Takaji Wakita, General Director of the National Infectious Diseases Institute, the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading strongly mainly in the Kansai region but tends to gradually spread to the capital region, including Tokyo. . Below are specific statistics on the number of cases and deaths caused by Covid-19 in some regions, countries and territories around the world according to Worldometers, up to 8:30 am, April 8 morning (Vietnam time). Male). Statistics of 5 countries with the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world: USA: 31,637,243 cases, 572,849 deaths Brazil: 13,197,031 cases, 341,097 deaths India: 12,926,061 cases, 166,892 deaths France: 4,841,308 cases, 97,722 deaths Russia: 4,606,162 cases, 101,480 deaths Statistics of cases and deaths caused by Covid-19 in parts of the world: Europe: 40,820,041 cases, 936,655 deaths North America: 36,446,922 cases, 829,961 deaths Asia: 30,056,614 cases, 439,983 deaths South America: 21,954,603 cases, 577,670 deaths Africa: 4,336,587 cases, 114,877 deaths Oceania: 58,826 cases, 1,150 deaths