2023-09-26 10:13:00
Covid in Italy and the Pirola variant, a new mini wave of cases arriving? “The fact that the BA.2.86 or ‘Pirola’ variant was sequenced in the days of the arrival of the updated anti-Covid vaccine in Italy seems like a twist of fate. It is a variant that has a ‘spike’ different from all the others Omicron variants with over 35 mutations and with these characteristics could be a type of virus that also infects recovered and vaccinated people.The interest of the scientific community, however, must be on whether or not it can be more contagious and transmissible, we have seen that EG. 5 or ‘Eris’ caused a mini wave of cases but it is not certain that Pirola could also cause large numbers”. Thus to time.news Salute the infectious disease specialist Marco Falcone, secretary of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit).
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Pirola variant, what to do?
What do we have to do? “Certainly molecular surveillance – replies Falcone – which must be conducted to understand whether this last variant remains confined to 5-10% prevalence in the infected population or becomes predominant. But – he warns – at the moment there are no reasons to think that it has a clinical impact that is different from the others, i.e. that it can cause a more serious Covid disease”.
According to the infectious disease specialist, “in any case, either Pirola, Eris or the next variant with the charming name, frail subjects, the elderly, oncology and hematology patients must get the vaccine updated to XBB which represents, regardless of the variant that is circulating, a stimulation and strengthening of the antibodies necessary to face the autumn. These subjects will perhaps become infected but – he concludes – will not develop a serious illness, the value of the vaccines remains intact compared to the new variants because we have already had the experience of what happened in the years gone by.”
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