There are several Omicron distributors worldwide. But what are they and why aren’t we as concerned as WHO officials?
While the peak of the epidemic may be over, the virus that causes Covid-19 continues to mutate with multiple variants circulating in different countries.
However, despite this, the rate of diagnosis and follow-up has decreased, and experts have urged people to take the risk of this disease seriously.
“The world has moved on from Covid and in many ways that’s good because people can be protected and protect themselves, but this virus isn’t going anywhere. It’s spreading. It’s changing, it’s killing, and we have to wait,” said Maria Van, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19. Kerkhove told EuroNews Next.
What are the most common covid variants today?
All the variants circulating today are Omicron’s subline of the highly transmissible COVID-19 that first emerged two years ago.
a sub-line, EG.5, also nicknamed ErisIt represents more than half of the Covid-19 variants currently circulating globally. It was declared a variant of interest by the World Health Organization in August.
Cases of EG.5 increased over the summer, but were recently outnumbered by a closely related subgroup in the United States. HV.1. This sub-variant currently accounts for 29 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the US, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“HV.1 is basically a variant derived from EG.5.1 (and previously XBB.1.5), which gathers a few mutations and allows it to better infect people with immunity to SARS-CoV-2,” said Professor Andrew Pekosz. of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University in the US, spoke to EuroNews Next.
Pekosz, who studies the replication of respiratory viruses, said these variants could be random mutations as part of the natural evolution of viruses.
According to data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECCC), XBB 1.5-like variants such as EG.5 – or Eris – are currently dominant, accounting for 67% of cases in EU/EEA countries.
Distribution of another sub-line of Omicron called BA.2.86 According to the World Health Organization, it is “slowly increasing globally” and has recently been classified as a “need gap”. Its sequence was first reported in Israel and Denmark in July and August.
“BA.2.86, when it came out, was a big concern for scientists because it had a large number of mutations, especially in the spike protein, which is a target for vaccines and infections,” Pecos said.
Scientists think this variant may be a weakened immune system, allowing the virus to multiply faster and accumulate mutations, but not nearly as dominant.
However, the French authorities recently announced that most of the cases of BA.2.86 in the country are the new subline JN.1, which “was found in other countries but is spreading in Europe and especially in France”.
It appears to have more mutations that make it more transmissible, Pekosz said.
Should we be worried about the new variants of covid?
RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, are known to mutate faster than other viruses because they “make so many mistakes and don’t have the ability to correct those mistakes,” Pekosz said. .
As scientists see with influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and its Sul protein also appear to be resistant to multiple mutations.
But so far, despite scientists paying attention to these mutations, they are not seeing changes in the severity of the disease, and the tests we use still recognize the virus.
“They continue to contribute to hospitalizations and even death among the most vulnerable in society, particularly those with certain health conditions,” said Andrew Pollard, professor of infection and immunology at the university. Oxford.
However, Pollard doesn’t expect to “restart the epidemic” because there is a strong population base worldwide with vaccinations and prevention before the disease.
While the new Covid-19 families “could have been created by mutations”, none were as successful as the Omicron variants, he said. “At least for now.”
The worst case scenario is a new strain that spreads quickly and causes serious illness that vaccines don’t help.
“We take nothing for granted. “We have different scenarios that we have planned in terms of variables and detection,” said Van Kerkhove, WHO’s interim director for epidemics and pandemic preparedness and prevention.
‘Challenge’ to reduce testing and monitoring
Currently, these differences do not lead to significant new changes in cases or hospitals, and experts say that while there is still enough sequencing to detect new differences, these efforts have slowed down.
“What we’ve lost recently is the ability to really detect the overall diversity in these viral populations,” Pekosz said.
Van Kerkhove encouraged people to continue getting tested if they think they have COVID-19, as this will allow scientists to track the virus and later study mutations.
“If we don’t test you, you can’t be in order,” she said.
Reductions in testing and sequencing, as well as delays in accessing the data, “make it very challenging for us and reduce our ability to do a risk assessment of each subvariable,” she added.
Most importantly, even as the world moves forward, experts recommend people get vaccinated, wear masks around crowded people or those at high risk of severe COVID-19, and get tested to prevent further spread.