According to Ecdc and WHO, the pandemic is not over and Omicron is not said to be the last mutation we see. And they urge governments to maintain preventive measures
Be Andrea Ammon director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Ecdc), sia Maria Van Kerkhove World Health Organization (WHO) warn governments not to let their guard down and argue that Omicron will not be the latest variant. And, they add, not said that Sars-Cov-2 will continue to mutate in milder strains which make people less sick than previous variants. But really so? We asked the professor Mario Clerici Professor of Immunology at the State University of Milan and scientific director of the Don Gnocchi Foundation.
What are the chances of a new version of the virus coming back?
None of us can say what will happen in the future. Especially since this is such a strange virus that it continually confronts us with challenges. All we can say hints at what happened with any other virus. In the history of man there have been so far at least 6- 7 Coronavirus species jumps from animal to man and Sars-cov-2 only the last. In all other cases what happened is that after an acute phase, the virus became much milder. And all these Coronaviruses, except Mers (here the article explaining the differences between the different viruses) which for another story, have always lived with us and give us symptoms that are very mild, very mild colds. So if we rely on what happened with all the other coronaviruses, it is quite logical to assume, hope, that the same thing will happen with this one too.
Which is what happens with most viruses, because the job of a virus is to become less and less pathogenic in order to share its life with man, it enters man, replicates itself, does not kill him and thus has a chance to continue staying alive. Ebola is an absolutely stupid virus because it infects, kills within a few days and indeed the Ebola epidemics arrive, they are very violent and in two months they disappear. Not what a virus wise from its point of view like all other viruses do. So based on the biology of viral infections there is the theoretical possibility that a more dangerous variant will emerge but it is much more likely that other less and less dangerous variants will emerge. Also because the variants impact on an increasingly vaccinated population thank goodness, adds Professor Clerici.
Mike Ryan director of WHO emergency programs argues that the virus will continue to evolve before it settles into a pattern – what does that mean?
It means exactly what I said earlier. Viruses essentially evolve until they reach a configuration that allows a dynamic equilibrium between man and the virus. So the viruses infect giving a disease with very few symptoms, very little severe, they replicate, continue to stay alive, to spread, they do not cause serious disease, unless they are disturbed by the pressure exerted by the drugs, they reach a balance that allows them to survive and become what all other coronaviruses have become. A dynamic equilibrium between man and virus that allows a coexistence as advantageous as possible for both.
Let’s remember: how was Sars-Cov-2 born?
Coronaviruses are all animal viruses that have then passed into humans . There have been 6-7 species leaps, from 1300 to the present. The problem that the last three coronaviruses have passed over the past 20 years. Why? the concept of “one health”: the increase in prolation entails an ever wider promiscuit between farms, for example of pigs and humans, therefore it is always easier for the transition, the jump of species to be. The population is increasing, it is necessary to raise more chickens rather than pigs to feed it, contacts are more and more continuous. There are many different viruses, the pathogenic ones for humans are about 220-250, grouped into families, each of them different. Some have lived with us for hundreds of thousands of years, others for example the HIV AIDS virus that arrived 80 years ago, Sars-Cov-2 two years ago.
How do mutations develop? What happens when the virus enters the body?
There is this theory, which for proven, and figuratively very beautiful: that so-called “arm wrestling”. On the one hand there is the virus, on the other hand there is the immune response. The virus evolves to escape the immune response and the immune response changes to cope with the virus until an equilibrium is reached. Because the immune response is never able to kill the virus completely. Most viruses that infect us stay with us for life, in a silent state because the immune system controls them.to never eliminate them The most classic example is that ofherpes simplex, the “fever” of the lip: it stays with us for life, the immune system controls it, every now and then the immune system becomes weaker and we have lip fever. Not because there is new contact with the virus, but because the virus is always present. The virus never manages to defeat the arm of the immune system, if not for example in the absurd case of Ebola, the host dies but the virus also dies. So the two contenders come to control each other, but not to overwhelm each other.
What effect do they have on the properties of the virus?
a very complex question, because there are both mutations that give the virus an advantage and mutations that disadvantage it. Mutations are a “cloud” of possibilities that happen randomly. The mutation that is most convenient for the virus at that moment is the one it selects and survives. The Micron has taken over because it contains a number of mutations such that the virus kills the host less and infects it much more. So for the virus it is very convenient because it kills the host less, therefore it maintains the milieu in which it replicates and at the same time infects much more, so it has many more guests in which it goes to live.
Variants are classified by WHO into variants of interest (VOI) and variants of concern (VOC) what are they?
In a schematic way, Vocs are those that present a clinical concern. Before becoming Voc, there are variants of interest. Some of them then become Vocs because they are actually able to take over. Many of them remain variants of interest. The Voc is the tip of the iceberg compared to the variants of interest.
What are the current Vocs, the variants of concern?
La prima la Wuhan, on which the vaccine is based, and this is one of the problems that the Micron is all taking: because it is so different from its progenitor. Then they arrived Alpha, Beta, Gamma delta e Omicron. (HERE the article on variants in Italy).
And those of interest (You)? Mu, Lambda and an AY4 sub-variant?
How did we go from delta to Omicron, we asked ourselves? Because they did not come to become Vocs.
Those under observation? WHO has seven of them including BA.2, the so-called invisible Omicron variant that differs from its older sister BA.1 (or B.1.1.529 as scientists call it) for some mutations (also in the Spike protein). How is he doing?And those under observation
From what we know it seems extremely unlikely that a clinical criticism will emerge. It is difficult to think that it could become a Voc, because it is so similar to Omicron that it should not be critical. (here we explain what we know)
How are mutations monitored?
There are a number of workshops that are aimed at this. When there is a person who falls ill, the viruses are randomly sequenced and it is seen if the amino acid sequence is different. There are laboratories that sequence the virus itself, in Milan the Sacco hospital, in Rome, the Spallanzani.
How do vaccines work on viruses?
In a nutshell, i
l vaccine induces the highly specific antibody, which binds the virus and prevents it from entering the body’s cells. It also induces T lymphocytes which, on the other hand, are much more promiscuous, are unable to prevent the penetration of the virus into the cell but kill the cells into which the virus has entered. This is exactly what happened with the Omicron variant wing. We all vaccinated ourselves with a virus, Wuhan which is now very different from Omicron so the vaccine-induced antibodies either couldn’t stop the infection or it did it very badly, so a lot of us got the Omicron. P
very few of us vaccinated have developed a severe disease, because the second line of defense, T lymphocytes induced by the vaccine killed the infected cells and prevented the disease from becoming severe.
An effective vaccine should also reduce the chance that a vaccinated person will contract the disease and spread the virus: do the available vaccines achieve this and to what extent?
Just today a pre-print studio saw that i vaccinated with mRna vaccine have protection, therefore antibodies able to neutralize the infection by 88-95% for the variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta and drops to less than 50% for Omicron, precisely because Omicron has twenty and more mutations. For we have the T lymphocytes that instead do not care, kill everything and the protection by the T lymphocytes against Omicron exactly comparable to that which exists against Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta
How can we reduce the risk of new variants appearing again and again?
If we reduce the lake in which the virus swims, so if we vaccinate more and more people, we reduce the chance that the var virus
i. Immunologically The only way to increase the percentage of vaccinated more and more.
February 12, 2022 (change February 12, 2022 | 18:52)
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