2023-08-09 15:45:00
The World Health Organization “is monitoring several Covid-19 variants including Eg.5, on which we will publish a risk assessment today. The risk remains that a more dangerous variant will emerge that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths” , So the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during the press conference in Geneva on global health emergencies. Sars-CoV-2 “continues to circulate in all countries, continues to kill and change”, adds the general manager, who relaunches: the pandemic is not over and the WHO “continues to evaluate the Covid-19 risk for health as high global public”.
Read also
“Three months ago I declared the end of the global health emergency for Covid-19, even though I said it remains a threat to global health – recalled Tedros -. Since then, globally the number of reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths, has continued to decline.”
“However, the number of countries reporting data to us has decreased significantly – warns Tedros -. In the last month, only 25% of countries have reported deaths from Covid to WHO and only 11% have reported hospitalizations and treatment admissions. This – remarks the WHO director general – does not mean that other countries do not record deaths or hospitalizations, it means that they are not reporting them to WHO”.
VARIANT EG.5 CLASSIFIED “OF INTEREST”
The Eris variant (EG.5 and its sub-lineages including EG.5.1) is meanwhile classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant of interest. This is the result of the last risk assessment. The variant of interest is the current highest level of attention given to new variants. Eris was initially classified on July 19 as a variant under monitoring. “Based on the available evidence, the public health risk posed by EG.5 is assessed as low globally,” WHO points out in today’s document. So the new variant is aligned to the level of risk already associated with Arturo XBB.1.16 and the other Voi (ie Kraken) currently in circulation.
“While EG.5 has shown higher prevalence, growth advantage and immune escape properties, no changes in disease severity have been reported to date,” the UN health agency points out. Concomitant increases in the share of EG.5 among the circulating variants and in Covid hospitalizations (however lower than in previous waves) have been observed in countries such as Japan and Korea but “no associations have been made between these hospitalizations and the new variant”. However, due to its growth advantage and immune escape characteristics, EG.5 “may cause an increase in the incidence of cases and become dominant in some countries or even globally”, warns WHO.
EG.5 was first reported on 17 February 2023. This variant carries one more amino acid mutation in the spike protein compared to its ‘parents’: subvariant XBB.1.9.2 and XBB.1.5 (Kraken). Within the EG.5 lineage, Eris stands out, the subvariant EG.5.1 which has an additional mutation in Spike and already accounts for 88% of the available sequences for EG.5 and its descendant lineages. Taken together, “the available evidence does not suggest that EG.5 has any additional public health risks compared to other descendant Omicron lineages currently in circulation,” is the conclusion of the WHO assessment.
FROM VACCINES TO RESEARCH: THE 7 NEW RECOMMENDATIONS
Continue with vaccinations, monitor cases, hospitalizations and deaths and strengthen research. The World Health Organization has developed new recommendations for Covid-19 dedicated to governments. In force from today until April 30, 2025, they may be modified and in any case will be submitted to the scrutiny of the 77th WHO World Assembly. The recommendations are collected in 7 maxi chapters. The first suggests that states “review and implement national Covid-19 plans and policies in the light of the WHO strategy and the 2023-2025 plan drawn up by WHO”, according to the World Health Organization, the prevention and control of infectious diseases, such as Covid-19, “must serve to reduce the burden of pathology in the population” and “to prepare for a possible worsening of the situation caused by the new variants”.
The second recommendation is on epidemiological surveillance. WHO reiterates that it is necessary “to support collaborative surveillance between the various states” because data are necessary “for situational awareness, risk assessment and detection of changes in the characteristics of the virus, its spread, severity of the disease and in the immunity of the population”. The third recommendation to governments is “to continue reporting on Covid mortality, on the sequences and effectiveness of the anti-Covid vaccine”. So that WHO can “understand and describe the epidemiological situation, have an overview of the variants, carry out global risk assessments and work with experts”.
The fourth recommendation to governments is “to continue to offer vaccination against Covid, both on the basis of suggestions from WHO Sage experts and on assessments of national data”. The fifth concerns research on Covid which must “continue” and must be “supported”. WHO’s sixth indication is that clinical care for patients must be “adequately integrated into all levels of health services, including access to proven treatments and measures to protect health workers”. Finally, the seventh and final provides that states “guarantee fair and safe access to health services to ensure that everyone has quality care”.
#risk #dangerous #variant #remains #virus #kills