Experts are increasingly concerned about the growth in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already confirmed the first signs suggest that a new wave of infections could soon appear, also motivated by the new mutations of the Covid, such as the subvariantes BQ.1 y BQ.1.1. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), these lineages are growing more and more and by the end of this month of November they could exceed 50% of infections in Europe.
Although these versions of the virus are competing to become the majority, they are actually all descended from the same strain: omicron. However, these mutations have not caused, for the moment, significant waves as the delta variant or the omicron itself did after their first appearances.
What some of these mutations do present is a greater potential escape from vaccines and prior immunization by contagion. “Viruses and pathogens are constantly trying to adapt and escape immune pressure that we proposed to them,” recalled Dr. Albert Ko, a physician and epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health for ‘The New York Times’.
This is the case of the new subvariant that has begun to worry experts and whose expansion is already being monitored by the EMA since it was detected in Singapore a little over a month ago. Is about XBBanother omicron mutation that, according to ‘The New York Times’, is called the “nightmare variant”.
Why is XBB, the Covid variant, called a “nightmare”?
XBB is the new Covid subvariant that worries experts the most, after it demonstrated its rapid Asian expansion and some countries of the European Union. It is a variant product of a combination between two subvariants that shared genetic material, managing to surpass in exhaust capacity to one of the most resistant coronavirus lineages to date, BA.2.75 Centauro.
Experts have baptized this new subvariant as «gryphon»which in Spanish translates as ‘faucet’, referring to the mythological creature with the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. However, the most striking nickname it has received is that of “nightmare variant”, as experts believe that it shows a increased resistance to antibodies compared to other variants. This is explained by the Canadian evolutionary biologist T. Ryan Gregory, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario (Canada), who recalls that XBB has been responsible for the increases in Covid-19 cases in Singapore or India.
Added to this subvariant is the concern aroused by BQ.1.1, known as “hound of hell”, which has also shown rapid transmission and greater contagion capacity. This name alludes to Cerberus, the dog of the god Hades who guarded the gates of the underworld with his three heads and from which it was almost impossible to escape, as is the case with this variant.
However, experts remember that the appearance of new variants, the result of the Covid mutation, is nothing new. “We’ve dealt with this before, with the flu, for example,” Ko explained.
For his part, the general secretary of the German Immunology Society, Carsten Watzl, recalled that there is no evidence that this variant is more serious: «Although BQ.1.1 has some immune escape, can never fully escape immunity“, detailed in the German newspaper Spiegel.
Symptoms of the XBB variant
As with other variants, the symptoms presented by patients infected with XBB are very similar. The most common with tos, throat pain, fatiguemalaise, diarrhoea, stuffy and runny nose, headache, fevermuscle aches, choking or loss of smell and taste.
In addition, according to the immunologist and professor Alfredo Corell, the new omicron variants have presented three new symptoms that were not so frequent in other previous subvariants: loss of appetite, aphonia y tachycardia.