Sharing a report by news.com.au, the Malaysian Health Ministry said Peru was now experiencing "the highest mortality rate in the world,” in a tweet on Monday.

"A new strain said to be more dangerous than the Delta variant has reportedly been detected in more than 30 countries over the past 4 weeks," it said.

"The Lambda strain is reported to originate from Peru, the country with the highest mortality rate in the world."

Lambda is running rampant in the South American country, contributing to some 500 deaths per 100,000 people - almost double that of second-placed Hungary, which is seeing 300 per 100,000 people die from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins data.

This comes as Chilean researchers found the variant could be resistant to Covid vaccines.

Experts at the University of Chile who studied the virus in local healthcare workers who received two doses of China's CoronaVac jab say Lambda is more infectious than the Brazilian and UK mutations.

"Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralising antibodies and increased infectivity,” they wrote in a paper yet to be peer reviewed.

"It is possible that it may exhibit higher infection rates, but we don't yet have enough reliable data to compare it to gamma or delta." 

Also known as C.37, the Lambda strain was first detected in Peru last year before quickly spreading to 30 countries, including Britain.

Of particular concern to virologists is the L452Q spike protein because of its potential to infect human cells like the L452R mutation in the highly infectious Delta variant.

Peruvian scientists noticed the variant in December when it accounted for “just one in every 200 samples”.

By March, that jumped to 50 per cent of cases. Now that figure is a whopping 82 per cent, according to the WHO.

Pablo Tsukayama, a molecular scientist at the Cayetano Heredia university in Lima said the virus' rapid rise "would suggest its rate of transmission is higher than other variants".

In neighbouring Chile, it accounts for almost a third of cases, though scientists are unable to say which the strain is more transmissible.

Six cases have already been reported in the UK - all of which were linked to overseas travel.

Public Health England declared it as a Covid Variant Under Investigation.

Source: The Sun

BDST: 1727 HRS, JUL 5, 2021
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