Experts explain: What are coronavirus lineages and variants?

Two experts on Wednesday clarified that a coronavirus lineage is different from a variant after confusion followed the announcement of the Quezon City government that the more transmissible Brazil variant had been detected in the country.

Mayor Joy Belmonte earlier said Quezon City recorded one COVID-19 case with the Brazil variant, but the Department of Health (DOH) quickly clarified that what was detected was the B.1.1.28 or the Brazil lineage and not the P.1 variant of concern. 

The Quezon City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit later on retracted the pronouncement regarding the Brazil variant.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes the P.1 variant as “a branch off the B.1.1.28 lineage.” 

Dr. Eva Cutiongco-dela Paz of the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health explained that viruses have subtypes that can be put into larger groupings called “lineages.”

Variants, meanwhile, are “groups of viruses that share the same set of distinctive or signature mutations.”

Dela Paz also said variants can have characteristics that make them more transmissible or more resistant to vaccines.

Philippine Genome Center (PGC) Executive Director Dr. Cynthia Saloma said the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil variants possess the N501Y mutation, which is associated with increased transmissibility.

The South Africa and Brazil variants were also found to contain the E484K mutation that is linked to “immune evasion” or possibly lowered vaccine efficacy.

“In the Philippines we do not have the P.1 yet,” Saloma stressed in Filipino during a virtual briefing.

The Philippines has so far recorded 118 UK variant cases, 58 South Africa variant cases, and 85 COVID-19 cases with the two mutations of concern. 

The PGC subjects hundreds of samples to genome sequencing every week to monitor the spread of coronavirus variants.

Dela Paz and Saloma are also members of the panel of experts tasked to monitor new variants. — RSJ, GMA News