90 cases of Brazil related coronavirus variant PHL-B.1.1.28 in The Philippines

The Philippines now has all three variants of the coronavirus that have been fuelling record-breaking spikes in infections across the globe, and a Philippine variant (PHL-B.1.1.28) that has the same lineage as the infectious Brazilian variant.  More...

Japan identifies a B.1.1.28 coronavirus strain with E484K and N501Y mutations from a traveller from the Philippines

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan, identified a B.1.1.28 strain with E484K and N501Y mutations from a SARS-CoV-2-positive sample collected on February 25, 2020 at a point of entry to Japan from a traveller from the Philippines(virus name : hCoV-19/Japan/IC-0824/2021, GISAID Accession ID: EPI_ISL_1198832) (1).  More...

Antibody resistance of coronavirus variants B.1.351 (SA) and B.1.1.7 (UK)

“Findings on B.1.351 [South Africa variant] are more worrisome in that this variant is not only refractory to neutralization by most NTD mAbs but also by multiple individual mAbs to the receptor-binding motif on RBD, largely owing to an E484K mutation.  More...