by Although the height of the pandemic may be over, the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate and multiple variants are circulating in all countries.
But despite this, testing and surveillance have declined, with experts urging people to continue to take the threat of this disease seriously.
“The world has moved on from COVID, and in many ways, that’s good because people are able to stay protected and keep themselves safe, but this virus hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s spread. It’s changing, it’s killing, and we have to keep up,” Maria Van Kerkhove, technical head of COVID-19 at the World Health Organization (WHO), told Euronews Next.
What are some of the most common variants of COVID today?
All variants circulating today are sublines of Omicron, a transmissible variant of COVID-19 that first emerged two years ago.
One extension, EG.5, also known as Eris, it accounts for more than half of the COVID-19 variants currently circulating around the world. The WHO announced it as an exchange of interest back in August.
Cases of EG.5 increased over the summer, but recently a related subvariant has been known HV.1. This sub-variant now accounts for 29 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“HV.1 is essentially a variant derived from EG.5.1 (and XBB.1.5 before it) that has only accumulated a few mutations that allow it to better infect people with immunity to SARS-CoV-2, ” Andrew Pekosz, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, told Euronews Next.
Pekosz, who studies the replication of respiratory viruses, said these variants probably arose as random mutations as part of the natural evolution of viruses.
According to the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), variants such as XBB 1.5 such as EG.5 – or Eris – are currently dominant, accounting for around 67 percent of cases in EU countries/ LEE
Prevalence of another known Omicron sublineage BA.2.86 “slowly increasing worldwide,” according to WHO, which recently classified it as a “variable of interest”. Its series were first reported in Israel and Denmark in July and August.
“When BA.2.86 came to light, it was of great concern to scientists because it was a variant with a large number of mutations, particularly in the spike protein, which is the target of the protective immunity provided by vaccines and infections to you. ,” said Pekosz.
Scientists think that this variant probably came from someone with a weakened immune system that enabled the virus to replicate and accumulate mutations at a faster rate, but it didn’t come close to being dominant.
However, French authorities recently said that most of the BA.2.86 cases in the country were a new JN.1 subline, which is “detected in other countries but mainly spread in Europe and especially in France”.
It appears that there are 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 pick up mutations at a faster rate than other viruses “because they make more mistakes and don’t have the ability to fix those mistakes, ” according to Pekosz .
SARS-CoV-2 and its spike protein seem to carry many mutations, similar to what scientists see with the flu.
But so far, although scientists pay attention to these mutations, they have not seen any changes in the severity of the disease, and the virus is still being detected in the tests we use.
These new variants will continue to emerge and “for the most vulnerable people in society, especially those with certain underlying health conditions, they will continue to increase hospitalizations and even deaths,” said Andrew Pollard, professor of infection and exemption at the National University of Ireland. Oxford.
However, Pollard does not expect them to “restart a pandemic” because globally, there is strong population immunity from vaccination and previous infection.
While new families of COVID-19 are “probably being generated by mutation,” none “have been as successful as the Omicron variants that are dominant,” he said.
The worst case scenario is a new variant that spreads faster and causes a more severe illness that vaccines don’t work against.
“We don’t take anything for granted. We have different scenarios that we are planning for in terms of the changes and their detection,” said Van Kerkhove, who is also WHO’s interim director for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention.
Reductions in ‘challenging’ testing and surveillance
Currently these variants are not causing a major surge in new cases or hospitalizations, and while experts say there is still enough sequencing to detect emerging variants, those efforts have slowed.
“What we’ve lost recently is the ability to really understand the full diversity of these virus communities,” Pekosz said.
Van Kerkhove encouraged people to continue testing if they think they have COVID-19 as this allows scientists to trace the virus and later sequence it to study possible mutations .
“If you are not tested, you can not order,” she said.
Reductions in testing and sequencing as well as increased delays in getting data “are very challenging for us and delay our ability to do risk evaluations on each of those sub-variants,” she said.
Most importantly, even as the world moves on, experts recommend that people get vaccinated, wear masks in crowds or around people at higher risk of COVID-19, and get tested for their prevent further spread.
