2023-08-11 08:14:00
Coming out of the majority of minds after more than three years of pandemic and several waves, the SARS-Cov-2 virus was recently remembered by some French people, especially in the wake of the Bayonne celebrations.
The few indicators still in place confirm an epidemic recovery.
In the emergency room, visits for suspicion of Covid increased by 31% the week from July 31 to August 6 compared to the previous one, concerning 920 patients, according to data from Public Health France.
“Numbers that remain moderate,” noted the public health agency. The waves of summer or winter 2022 were accompanied by more than 4,000 weekly passages.
And in the SOS Médecins network, “medical acts for suspected Covid-19 are on the rise in all age groups”, at more than 1,500 acts at the start of August, a jump of 84% in one week, according to SpF.
Probable illustration of the propagative effect of the Bayonne festivals, where 1.3 million people flocked, New Aquitaine stands out with the strongest regional increase (+284%).
A resumption of the epidemic is also reported in the United States, the United Kingdom, but also in India or Japan.
If, since the beginning of May, the WHO no longer considers the pandemic a global health emergency, “the virus continues to circulate in all countries, continues to kill and continues to change”, underlined Wednesday its director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during of a press conference.
Its EG.5 version, nicknamed Eris by some scientists, is currently the most scrutinized because it could carry the rebound. Summer gatherings and declining immunity may also play a role, some experts say.
This sub-variant of the Omicron family, member of the XBB lineage, seems more transmissible than others in circulation -probably under the effect of new genetic mutations-, and perhaps more capable of escaping immune defences.
At this stage, “the available evidence does not suggest that EG.5 poses additional public health risks compared to other circulating Omicron progeny lines,” according to the WHO.
But “the risk remains that a more dangerous variant will emerge and cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths,” said Dr Tedros.
Covid-19: a new variant is gaining ground, should we be worried?
“Fog”
Monitoring epidemic oscillations is however more complicated, due to a lack of data since the drop in the number of tests, sequencing and the stopping of monitoring devices.
“The fog is thick on the epidemiological situation all over the world. It is urgent that the health authorities reinstate a reliable Covid health monitoring system”, according to Antoine Flahaut, who pleads in particular for the analysis of wastewater in Europe. .
Over time and waves, the impact of Covid on hospitalizations and deaths has greatly diminished, thanks to the high level of immunity acquired by vaccination and/or infections. But it is not zero, and the long Covids are added to it.
And “the question is whether immunocompromised and elderly people will be prescribed tests in the event of even minor symptoms to benefit from early antiviral treatments, effective in reducing the risk of serious forms”, judged Antoine Flahault.
Vaccination remains crucial, and the WHO urged on Wednesday to “intensify efforts to increase vaccination coverage”.
If the anti-Covid vaccines lose effectiveness over time in the face of infections, they are still considered to be very protective against serious forms.
To better stick to the mutations of the virus, the pharmaceutical groups Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax are now preparing vaccines targeting the XBB line, as recommended by the WHO in the spring.
In several countries, including France, vaccination campaigns, focused on the most vulnerable, are planned for this fall, coupled with those against the flu.
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