Highly mutated COVID variant found in new countries but pandemic in 'a
different phase’
Send a link to a friend
[August 25, 2023]
By Jennifer Rigby and Julie Steenhuysen
LONDON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - A highly mutated COVID variant called BA.2.86
has now been detected in Switzerland and South Africa in addition to
Israel, Denmark, the U.S. and the U.K., according to a leading World
Health Organization official.
The Omicron offshoot carries more than 35 mutations in key portions of
the virus compared with XBB.1.5, the dominant variant through most of
2023 - a number roughly on par with the Omicron variant that caused
record infections compared to its predecessor.
It was first spotted in Denmark on July 24 after the virus infecting a
patient at risk of becoming severely ill was sequenced. It has since
been detected in other symptomatic patients, in routine airport
screening, and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries.
A dozen scientists around the world said while it was important to
monitor BA.2.86, it was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe
disease and death given immune defenses built up worldwide from
vaccination and prior infection.
"It's still low numbers," Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead at
the WHO, said in her first interview regarding BA.2.86.
That the known cases are not linked suggests it is already circulating
more widely, particularly given reduced surveillance worldwide, she
said.
Scientists are testing how well updated COVID-19 vaccines will work
against BA.2.86. Kerkhove noted that vaccines have been better at
preventing severe illness and death than re-infection.
“We are in a very different phase (of the pandemic) than if this popped
up in the first year,” said Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who
advises the WHO.
Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency and others spotted the
new variant last week, held meetings with scientists throughout the
weekend, and issued a risk assessment on Wednesday. There have been nine
such cases detected as of Aug. 23 and the variant was also found in
wastewater in Switzerland.
It appears that current tests and medications remain effective against
BA.2.86, although the variant may be more capable of causing infection
in vaccinated people and those who have had COVID previously, the
assessment said. There is no evidence yet that it is causing more severe
illness.
Still, the potential risk must be taken seriously, experts said, and
surveillance must continue, if not at levels undertaken at the
pandemic's peak.
[to top of second column]
|
People wait in line to take a COVID-19
oral swab test on a sidewalk in the Harlem neighborhood of New York
City, U.S., June 20, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
"Governments cannot drop the ball,"
Van Kerkhove said, adding that the coronavirus continues to
circulate, evolve, infect and kill people.
TESTING DOWN 90%
Another COVID subvariant called EG.5 already has some people on high
alert in the U.S.
Pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid told Reuters on-site
molecular tests and sales of at-home tests increased in recent
weeks.
How much surveillance is needed to track the virus remains an open
question, health experts said, and the countries that have detected
the new variant all have strong genomic sequencing capacity. As of
December 2022, 84% of countries could sequence Sars-CoV-2
in-country, according to WHO figures.
But data submitted to the international database, GISAID, has fallen
dramatically. In the first week of Omicron, more than 200,000
coronavirus sequences were submitted. Last week, it was around
20,000.
“When we do sequencing now, it's like (finding) a needle in a
haystack," said Tyra Grove Krause, a Danish epidemiologist at the
Statens Serum Insitut which identified three BA.2.86 cases.
The WHO said COVID testing has declined by 90% worldwide from the
peak. Testing has also plummeted in the U.S., and sequencing is down
by around 90%, said Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as White House
COVID-19 Response Coordinator until June 2023.
Data from hospital admissions, emergency room visits, deaths,
wastewater sampling and sequencing, including at airports, has
helped fill in the global picture, he said.
Jha and others, including the European public health agency and
COVAX, the global program for getting vaccines to the world's
poorest, said COVID surveillance and defenses could be reactivated
in the event of a major infection wave.
"It would take resources; it would take will; it would take people
deciding this is important to do," Jha said. "But ... we've largely
figured out how."
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby and Julie Steenhuysen; additional
reporting by Pratik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and
Bill Berkrot)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |