2023-08-09 19:47:41
The Eris variant of Sars-CoV-2 runs particularly fast in some countries of the world: China, the USA, South Korea, according to what emerges from the latest risk assessment conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), in which the point on the new daughter of Omicron XBB just classified with its sub-lineages as Variant of interest (Voi) by the UN health agency, considering that “it can become dominant in some countries or even globally”. As of August 7, 2023, there were 7,354 Omicron EG.5 sequences – this is the official ‘name’ of the new variant, baptized Eris in its EG.5.1 version by social media experts – shared in the Gisaid database by 51 countries.
The epidemiological comparison between week 25, which runs from June 19 to 25, to week 29 (July 17 to 23), shows a “significant increase” in the global percentage of EG.5, compared to the other circulating variants. It went from 7.6% to 17.5%. And similarly, among countries with more than 1,000 deposited sequences, the prevalence of EG.5 rose from 24.7% to 45% for China, from 5.6% to 12.8% for the United States, and from 7.6% to 19.3% for South Korea.” EG.5 has the fastest growing variant currently in circulation in the WHO Region of the Americas, the European Region, and the Western Pacific Region.
In the United Kingdom, the UK Health Security Agency has estimated that Eris EG.5.1 has the fastest growing rate in the country, with an estimated prevalence of 14.6% since 20 July. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in their Aug. 5 projections, calculates national growth of EG.5 at 17.3 percent.
Based on its genetic characteristics, immune escape characteristics and growth rate estimates, EG.5 could spread globally and contribute to a surge in case incidence. Increasing prevalence of EG.5 has seen increases in cases and hospitalizations, although there is currently no evidence of an increase in disease severity directly associated with EG.5.” Even if – the agency points out – a more complete evaluation is needed.
The majority of EG.5 sequences are from China (30.6%, 2,247 sequences). The other countries with at least 100 sequences are the United States of America (18.4%, 1,356 sequences), South Korea (14.1%, 1,040 sequences), Japan (11.1%, 814 sequences), Canada (5.3%, 392 sequences), Australia (2.1%, 158 sequences), Singapore (2.1%, 154 sequences), United Kingdom (2.0%, 150 sequences), France (1.6% , 119 sequences), Portugal (1.6%, 115 sequences) and Spain (1.5%, 107 sequences).
WHO and its Technical Advisory Group on the Evolution of Sars-CoV-2 (Tag-Ve) continue to recommend that Member States prioritize specific actions to better address the uncertainties surrounding antibody escape and the severity of EG.5: Share information on the growth advantage of the variant in your country and provide information on sequences; conduct neutralization tests using human sera representative of affected communities, and live EG.5 virus isolates; perform a benchmarking to detect changes in severity indicators.
#countries #run