Aug 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it is tracking a new strain of the highly mutated virus that causes the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
In a post on messaging platform X, the CDC said the strain was named BA.2.86 and was detected in the United States, Denmark, and Israel.
“As we learn more about BA.2.86, CDC advice to protect yourself from COVID-19 stay the same‘ said the agency.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced early Thursday in a post about X that it had classified BA.2.86 as a “variant under surveillance” because it contains a large number of mutations.
The WHO said so far only a few cases of variant sequences have been reported from a small number of countries.
The new lineage, which has 36 mutations from the currently dominant XBB.1.5 novel coronavirus variant, is “reminiscent of earlier lineages” of the virus, says S. Wesley, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Methodist University of Houston. Dr. Long explained.
He said it remains to be seen if BA.2.86 can compete with other strains or if it has any advantage in evading immune responses from previous infections or vaccinations.
Virologist Jesse Bloom of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said in a slide deck presented that this new variant is “comparable to or better than XBB.1.5 from antibodies induced by pre- and first-generation Omicron variants. “It has an avoidance power of 100%,” he said in an early analysis. on thursday. https://slides.com/jbloom/new_2nd_gen_ba2_variant?ftag=YHF4eb9d17#/12
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Bloom’s slide states that the most likely scenario is that BA.2.86 is less contagious than the current dominant variant, so it won’t spread widely, but more sequence data is needed. pointing out.
“My biggest concern is that it could cause an even bigger spike in cases than what we’ve seen in recent waves,” Dr. Long said. “Boosters still help fight COVID-19 in general.”
(This article corrected the name of the novel coronavirus variant to XBB.1.5 in paragraphs 6 and 8, the name of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in paragraph 8, and corrected a typo in BA.2.86 in paragraph 7. it was done)
Reported by Shivani Tanna from Bangalore.Editing: Himani Sarkar and Simon Cameron Moore
Our criteria: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.