The battle of the SARS-CoV-2 variants: a winning approach

In order to fight the pandemic in the long term, it is crucial to understand why one variant prevails over another. An international study conducted by the Institute of Virology and Immunology and the University of Bern, in collaboration with the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Germany, has provided important answers by comparing the spread and transmission of different emerging variants in parallel. This approach is now applicable to the comparison of new variants, such as delta and omicron. This unique study has just been published in the scientific journal Nature. As new SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge and drive the pandemic, the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI) and the University of Bern with international collaborators have studied emerging variants in animal ( in vivo ) and biophysical interaction and cell culture ( in vitro ) models. The originality of this new study is to have put the variants in direct competition in multiple models to reveal why some variants had a real advantage to spread globally. According to Charaf Benarafa, senior author of the study: "Taken independently, each of the variants appears to be as effective as their progenitor, the initial virus: it is difficult to separate them.