New subvariants of Ómicron have been detected in the United States, as well as Europe and South Asia. These new strains appear to be more infectious and are already responsible for more than 5% of cases.
In the US, Europe and part of South Asia they have already been detected three new subvariants of Omicronwhich would have mutated and become more contagious.
The information was released by Centers for Disease Controla US government department, which, through its web platform for monitoring the proportions of variants, added two new “daughters of Ómicron” to its list: BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. In addition to the detection in the South Asian zone of XBB.
occupying a 5.7% of cases, both BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have increased their contagiousness level exponentially.
According to Washington Postthese subvariants would have mutations at key points of spike proteinswhere antibodies that block the virus are installedtherefore, these transformations would make the subvariants more infectious.
Subvariante XBB
According to Amesh A. Adalja, MD, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health SecurityXBB “it is a hybrid version of two strains of the BA.2 form of Omicron”stated to Prevention.
This strain would be “spreading efficiently” in places like Singapore, as it is one of the “more evasive of antibodies, far exceeding BA.5 and approaching the level of SARS-CoV-1”according to a study published in BioRxiv.
Though “The vaccine and having previously had Covid are not believed to offer the same level of protection against XBB as with previous strains”the researchers warn that it is just as transmissible as currently circulating variants and that no evidence that it causes more severe disease.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, new subvariants
According to Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institutethe more worrying of these two subvariants is BQ.1.1consigned TIME. This, since “it is riddled with problematic mutations that could pose a threat to our immune system response”he told the magazine.
Contrary to what the study published in BioRxiv affirms, which indicates that these new subvariants could avoid the immune system, Dr. Topol, affirmed that the specific vaccines against Ómicron, if they could grant antibodies that protect from the new strains.
As for the symptoms generated by XBB, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, they would be the same as those that have been presented until now through covid infection.