The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States health authorities announced Friday that they are closely monitoring a new variant of the covid-19 virus, called BA.2.86, although its potential impact is unknown at the moment.
The WHO decided to classify the new variant “in the category of variants under surveillance due to the large number of mutations [más de 30] of the Spike gene that it has”, indicated the organization in its epidemiological bulletin dedicated to the covid-19 pandemic, released early Friday morning.
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It is the Spike protein that gives the virus its spiky appearance and that makes it possible for SARS-CoV-2 to penetrate host cells.
At the moment, the new variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Detection (CDC) indicated that they are closely monitoring the variant, in a message posted on the social network X (ex Twitter).
Currently, only four sequences of this variant are known, without any known epidemiological relationship, the WHO explained.
“The potential impact of the BA.2.86 mutations is currently unknown and is being carefully studied,” said the organization, which reiterated the importance of continuing to monitor, sequence, and notify the competent authorities in order to have an accurate view of the pandemic as a whole. from covid-19.
WHO is monitoring three variants of interest (XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and EG.5) and seven variants are under surveillance (BA.2.75, BA.2.86, CH.1.1, XBB, XBB.1.9.1, XBB. 1.9.2 and XBB.2.3).
Most of the countries that implemented specific surveillance devices for the presence of the covid-19 virus and its variants have dismantled them, considering that the threat had diminished and that the expense they represented was not justified.
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In early May, the WHO stopped considering the pandemic a global health emergency but “the virus continues to circulate in all countries, it continues to kill and it continues to change,” the organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned last week.
2023-08-18 13:21:33
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