Abstract
Background
SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that initially appeared in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. Since then, the virus has spread until to almost all countries resulting in a global pandemic. Over time, this virus continues to mutate and produce several other variants. In Indonesia, there are multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 identified, as well as various local variants that are not yet considered to be ‘variants of concern’. Therefore, this investigation is intended to understand the prevalence and epidemiology of the virus, along with detecting the mutations that occur in genes associated with whole-genome-sequences (WGS) isolated in Indonesia.
Result
Analyses were performed to investigate SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in Indonesia using data obtained from GISAID.org. A whole-genome sequencing was performed on the random samples taken from GISAID.org utilizing the BLAST tool from NCBI. The variants identified in Indonesia are Alpha, Beta and Delta variants, as well as local variants B.1.470 and B.1.466.2. As of the end of November, it was found that there are a total of 5.348 cases of the Delta, 78 cases of the Alpha, 22 cases of the Beta, 572 cases of the local variant B.1.470, and 1.833 cases of the local variant B.1.466.2. Other cases include 219 cases of local variant B.1.1.398, 160 cases of local variant B.1.459 and 1.028 cases of the wild type. In total there are 9.260 isolated genomes collected in GISAID that are located in Indonesia. Using BLAST, WGS of Alpha, Delta, Beta, B.1.470 and B.1.466.2 variants isolated in Indonesia was compared with the wild type from Wuhan NC.045512.2. It was found that multiple mutations have occurred in the samples. The mutations identified as are H69del, V70I, N501Y, D614G, A570D, P681H, T716I, S982A, and D1118H in the Alpha variant, T19R, L452R, T478K, D614G, and D950N in the Delta variant, D215G, D614G, A701V, L241-, L242-, K417N in the Beta variant, D614G, L242F, and S12F in the B.1.470 variant and D614G, N439K, and P681R in the B.1.466.2 variant. These mutations had caused alterations in the characteristics of the virus and how it may affect vaccine efficacy.
Conclusions
The results from whole-genome sequencing of variants isolated in Indonesia have found that multiple mutations have occurred in genes of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus and it caused alterations in the characteristics of the virus and may affect vaccine efficacy. It should be noted that classification from the GISAID website may change overtime. The result in this paper is based on the data taken at the end of November.