2023-08-10 12:20:55
Updated Thursday, August 10, 2023 – 12:20
Despite the possibility of an increase in cases, this does not translate, for the moment, into an increase in hospitalizations
Canadian microbiologist in a laboratoryPaul H. JosephHealth The incidence of Covid-19 rises 150% since the beginning of July and reaches 75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants Health ‘Super-resistant’: why some people do not get Covid
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the new variant EG.5 of Covid-19 can increase cases globallyalthough there is no scientific evidence that at the moment it is producing a increase in hospitalizations.
Through a report published this Tuesday, the United Nations international health organization has described as “low” the public health risk posed by EG.5, a lineage descended from XBB.1.9.2 that was first reported on February 17. It was designated as a variant under surveillance on July 19 and today the WHO has classified it as a variant of interest.
“Although EG.5 has shown higher prevalence, growth advantage, and immune escape properties, no change in disease severity to date. Although concurrent increases in the proportion of hospitalizations for GE.5 and Covid-19 (lower than in previous waves) have been observed in countries such as Japan and South Korea, No associations have been established between these hospitalizations and GD.5“, the organization has highlighted.
However, the WHO also points out that, due to its growth advantage and immune escape characteristics, EG.5 “may cause an increase in the incidence of cases and become dominant in some countries or even globally.”
EG.5 carries an additional F456L mutation in the spike protein compared to its parent subvariants, XBB.1.9.2 and XBB.1.5. Within the EG.5 lineage, the EG.5.1 subvariant has an additional Q52H mutation in the spike and represents 88 percent of the available sequences for EG.5 and its descendant lineages.
Worldwide, there has been a constant increase of EG.5. During the week of July 17-23, its overall prevalence was 17.4 percent, which is “a notable increase” from the data reported four weeks earlier (June 19-25), when it was 7.6 percent.
Until August 7, they have been collected for study 7,354 EG.5 sequences from 51 passages. Most come from China (30.6%, 2,247 sequences). The other countries with at least 100 sequences are the United States (18.4%, 1,356), South Korea (14.1%, 1,040), Japan (11.1%, 814), Canada (5.3%, 392 ), Australia (2.1%, 158), Singapore (2.1%, 154), United Kingdom (2.0%, 150), France (1.6%, 119), Portugal (1.6%, 115) and Spain (1.5%, 107).
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