Omicron variant, how it came about: Chinese researchers hypothesize a leap from mice to humans
The variante Omicron it scares the world despite the fact that it seems to be more contagious but also less dangerous than the previous ones. Many countries are preparing ad hoc measures to contain the growth of infections and in Italy it is planned to introduce thevaccination obligation for people over 50-60. From China comes a first hypothesis on how the variante Omicron. It is thought to be due to one spillback, i.e. a return of the Covid-19 from mice to humans.
Omicron variant, how was it born? The virus made the leap from human to rat and then returned to human
“Our results – explain the researchers ofChinese Academy of Sciences – suggest that the progenitor of Omicron passed from humans to mice, rapidly accumulated mutations favorable to infection of that host, then returned to humans, indicating an interspecies evolutionary trajectory for the epidemic of Omicron“.
Scientists for their research, published in the journal Journal of Genetics and Genomics, examined 45 mutations that Omicron acquired with respect to the variant B.1.1. The spike protein of the most widespread mutation today, used by the virus to attack the human body, would have been subjected to a wider selection than any other variant of the Covid-19. Hence the hypothesis that there has been a new leap from man to animals, which would then have recontacted humans. The molecular spectrum of mutations acquired from the first “version” of the variante Omicron it is “significantly different” from that which evolved in human patients but very similar to that of rats.
In the meantime, the alert goes up for one new variant from Cameroon which according to virologists may be more resistant to vaccines.