2023-08-16 14:27:30
A new variant appears in Europe. It has been reported in Israel and Denmark and “for now we will call it ‘BA.X’ because it is not exactly clear what its Pango designation would be”, the international nomenclator, “if it had one”. Thus on Twitter the ‘hunter of variants’ the biologist Ryan Gregory, of the Department of Integrated Biology of the Canadian University of Guelph, in Ontario. Scientists are alarmed by the high number of mutations on the Spike protein, 24 according to some experts, but very close to the 32 of the first Omicron. “So far – he continues – there are only a few sequences” of ‘BA.X’ and “it may not be able to compete with the currently dominant variants and therefore not take off”. But for Gregory it is “one to watch and potentially worrying”.
This lineage “appears to have diverged from an early ancestor of Omicron, possibly BA.2 or perhaps even from the original Omicron (B.1.1.529). If it were from the latter, the name of the new variant would be BA.6,” he writes. Gregory on Twitter, confirming that “the first sequence was identified in Israel and brought to attention on August 13, since then – he continues – two other quite similar sequences have been recorded in Denmark”. According to the scientist, “the fact that it has been identified in Israel and Denmark is a little worrying because it is clearly not limited to one nation”.
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