The risk is “Student“that the covid-19 variants recently identified in the UK and South Africa are a higher cause of mortality. This is the opinion expressed by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in a report released on December 29.

Read also: Five things to know about the new variant of the coronavirus

No more virulent or more lethal

But why such an alert? It is not the variant itself that is more virulent or more lethal. Indeed, as indicated by the English public health institute Public Health England in a study published on December 28, the British variant does not appear to cause more hospitalizations for severe form of covid or death than the older strain of coronavirus.

More pressure on health systems

But, like the South African variant, the British variant is more contagious, from 50 to 74%. And it is this increased transmission rate that risks, according to the ECDC, generating additional pressure on health systems and therefore an estimated impact “higher on the number of hospitalizations and the number of deaths“.

This is especially true for “the elderly or (for people) with co-morbidities“, continues the agency.

3,000 cases of the variant worldwide

To date, more than 3,000 cases of the British variant have already been identified in the UK and around the world, such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Jordan, South Korea. , but also in Canada, the United States and Chile.

Almost 300 cases of the South African variant have been detected in this country, for three cases in Europe: two in the United Kingdom and one in Finland. All three were back from a trip to South Africa.