2023-08-21 11:47:00
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A newly identified, highly mutated variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 has alerted nations around the world. Health authorities and scientists are scrambling to determine its extent and how it will affect human immunity.
Eris, the new strain of COVID-19 declared as a “variant of interest” by the WHO
This variant, designated as BA.2.86 and colloquially called “Pirola” by variant-evolving social media enthusiasts, features a remarkable number of changes: about 30 amino acid modifications to its spike protein relative to omicron’s BA.2 subvariant, its direct predecessor.
Its name comes from an asteroid discovered in 1927 and which also coincides with the Pyrola family of herbaceous plants, which have in common their long, thin stems and evergreen leaves.
How dangerous is BA.2.86?
Although it is still premature to draw conclusions about the severity or transmissibility of this variant, they are already working on culturing it for testing with human antibodies.
At the moment, the World Health Organization (WHO) has cataloged it as a “variant under surveillance”, a label urging countries to monitor and report any sequences detected. If this variant turns out to be more dangerous or evades current vaccines or treatments, it could be reclassified by the WHO to the category of “variant of interest” or “variant of concern”, although, so far, the WHO has not assigned any variant to this last classification.
So far, only six sequences of BA.2.86 have been reported in four countries. However, public health specialists fear that there are many more, given the reduction in global monitoring of the variants. The initial finding was in Israel, but soon Denmark, the United States, and the United Kingdom reported similar cases.
The main unknown is whether BA.2.86 will be highly transmissible.
Are the new variants more dangerous?
Although emergency room visits and hospitalizations in the United States remain low, they have been rising since early July, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). So far, though, doctors have reported that patients seen in recent weeks, while the Eris variant was spreading, are not as affected as those in previous waves.
Further spread of BA.2.86 would likely result in more disease and mortality in vulnerable populations, although it is still premature to know if it will cause more serious disease.
In fact, a problem regarding risk perception, both for better and for worse, is precisely the fashion for naming these new variants. The variant classifiers, led mainly by Ryan GregoryProfessor of Biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, had previously adopted names of mythological creatures, such as “Triton”, “Cerberus”, “Kraken”, and more recently “Arthur”, “Eris” and “Fornax”.
But, despite these designations, it is important to note that since the identification of the omicron variant in South Africa in November 2021, the COVID virus has not presented particularly alarming mutations.
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