Oleksandr Butenko, a virologist at the Gamaleya Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, assessed the danger of new mutations of coronavirus infection in an interview with Sputnik radio.
According to him, not every mutation leads to the emergence of a new viable variant of the virus. Only those species remain in nature that find their niche, which allows them to reproduce and exist in the population, the specialist explained.
Butenko noted that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which caused the current pandemic, was formed as a result of recombination, that is, the exchange of genetic material between closely related viruses. The 2002 SARS virus from China differs in a certain way from SARS-CoV-2, despite the fact that they have great genetic homology.
The specialist added that the main role in the evolution of viruses lies in natural selection. However, constant mutations of SARS-CoV-2 do not mean that coronavirus infection is becoming more dangerous for people, Butenko concluded.
Earlier, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said that almost 1.5 thousand coronavirus mutations were found in Russia. Later, the department reported that the COVID-19 mutations identified in the country do not affect significant changes in the course of the disease, most of the known genomes differ from each other in a small number of substitutions.