Eris, BA.2.86: Do I have to worry about COVID again?

Aug 19 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. tracking a new highly mutated lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Six cases have been detected in four countries since the end of July. Scientists are keeping an eye on the new lineage, called BA.2.86, because it has 36 mutations that distinguish it from the currently dominant XBB.1.5 variant.

So far there is no evidence that BA.2.86 spreads faster or causes more serious disease than earlier versions. The CDC gave its advice on how to protect yourself from COVID It remains the same.

What’s new about COVID?

COVID infections and hospitalizations have been on the rise in the US, Europe and Asia, with more cases in recent months attributed to the subvariant EG.5 “Eris”descendant of the Omicron lineage that originally emerged in November 2021.

In recent days, public health authorities have documented one case of BA.2.86 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, and three cases in Denmark.

What do scientists say about BA.2.86?

BA.2.86 comes from an “earlier branch” of the coronavirus, so it differs from the variant that current vaccines target, explained Dr. S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital. .

He said it remains to be seen if BA.2.86 will be able to compete with other strains of the virus or if it will have any advantage in escaping immune responses from a previous infection or vaccination.

But many countries have drastically reduced testing of patients and their efforts to analyze the genomes of the viruses that cause new COVID cases. In that situation, the trajectory of BA.2.86 “doesn’t look good right now,” given the speed at which new cases are being identified, said Dr. Eric Topol, a genomics expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

Its many mutations make BA.2.86 “radically different in its structure” compared to previous variants, Topol said.

The main question, he added, is whether BA.2.86 will turn out to be highly transmissible.

Do new variants make people sicker?

US emergency department visits and COVID hospitalizations remain low but have increased since early July, according to data on the CDC website. So far, though, doctors have reported that patients seen in recent weeks, as the Eris variant has spread, are not as sick as those they treated during previous waves of the pandemic.

Further spread of BA.2.86 would likely cause more illness and death in vulnerable populations, Topol said.

It’s too early to tell if BA.2.86 will cause more serious disease.

“Based on the available evidence, we do not yet know what, if any, risks (BA.2.86) may pose to public health beyond what has been seen with other currently circulating lineages,” a CDC spokesperson said.

Will the vaccines protect against new variants?

Due to the waning of the pandemic, it may have been a year or more since many people were previously infected or vaccinated against COVID.

“The vaccine will continue to give you a great defense against disease and death,” Long said.

Updated COVID booster shots now being developed have been designed to target the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant.

Moderna said preliminary trial data suggests its latest version of the vaccine shows promise against Eris and a related variant called Fornax, which has begun circulating in the US.

Pfizer Inc has said that its updated COVID-19 vaccine showed neutralizing activity against the Eris subvariant in a study conducted in mice.

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