Theodoros Vasilakopoulos, professor of Intensive Care at the University of Athens, spoke to ERT about the new subvariant of Omicron called “Arctouros” which has appeared in thirty countries so far. He also mentioned the research that is being carried out for new vaccines against Covid-19, aimed at shielding the upper respiratory tract and combating the easy transmission of the strain.
“It actually started at least three months ago from India. It has not signaled a very big danger in other countries,” said Mr. Vassilakopoulos to “Connections”, clarifying that the new variant has not prevailed or increased particularly.
According to the expert, the appearance of the new variant of the coronavirus in India does not particularly worry scientists as this country has different epidemiological characteristics compared to Greece. And as revealed by the World Health Organization, it has not yet named the new Omicron sub-variant as a high-risk strain.
“Laboratory studies say that in the worst case it will be 20% more contagious and probably not more severe. We hope that it will not cause serious problems in the health systems,” he said. Referring to the symptoms of the new variant, he emphasized that it has some particularities, in the sense that in India it causes conjunctivitis a little more often – especially in children – i.e. red eyes with blisters, eyelids that cannot be opened.”
Vassilakopoulos explained that the virus will continue to evolve and that it is not going to magically disappear. “Some of these transformations of the virus will give strains which will probably acquire some new characteristics,” he noted.
In fact, he did not fail to say that within the next two years it is possible that we will see a stronger strain of the coronavirus. “As time goes by, the virus tries to become more contagious because that’s the only way someone survives inside hosts, but it doesn’t want the virus to kill its hosts because if it kills them, it won’t be able to be transmitted,” he added.
The new vaccines and the fourth dose
“The big danger right now is that we all want to forget about the pandemic. So we have put the measures and surveillance completely aside and there is a risk that some strain will come again which will be really more difficult and we will not realize it in time”, warned Mr. Vasilakopoulos.
He did not fail to refer to the scientific research, stressing that the US has decided to finance, in addition to the 18 billion dollars they have already given, with another 5 billion dollars the development of vaccines which will be for the upper respiratory tract, in order to reduce the transmissibility of the virus, but also of the vaccines that will address all coronaviruses,
“There is hope that within the next period of time the disease will also be able to be treated by the scientific community with new, more important tools”, pointed out the professor of Pulmonology.
Responding to whether we will need to do a fourth vaccine, he appeared confident. “We will need to make a new vaccine in the fall, that’s for sure. I don’t think we will be able to get the new vaccine that quickly. There are vaccines in the clinical trial phase,” he added, saying that the new vaccines will offer protection against all coronaviruses.