2023-12-19 18:39:17
Variant trackers say they expect it to become the leading coronavirus variant worldwide within weeks.
Courtesy | Several countries have an increase in covid-19 cases due to it
The JN.1 variant descends from BA.2.86, or Pirola, a subvariant that has attracted attention in recent months in the world, due to the large number of changes in its spike proteins: more than 30.
Scientists feared it was so mutated that it could completely escape the protection of Covid-19 vaccines and antibodies, perhaps triggering another tidal wave of disease like the original omicron variant did in 2021.
That never happened, but BA.2.86 persisted and grew very slowly in some countries, including the United States. Some studies suggested that it never took off because it may have lost some of its ability to infect our cells.
Enter JN.1, who is two generations removed (a granddaughter, if you will) from BA.2.86. JN.1 has only one change to its spike protein compared to its ancestor, but that appears to have been enough to make it a faster, fitter virus.
The CDC estimates that the prevalence of JN.1 more than doubled in the United States between late November and mid-December. He appears to be getting help from holiday travel and waning immunity.
“If I just look at the growth curve, I see that it’s going up quite a bit and it seems to coincide with the Thanksgiving break in terms of calendar,” said Dr. Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases at genomic sequencing company Helix. .
Variant trackers say they expect it to become the leading coronavirus variant worldwide within weeks.
“It’s already pretty clear that it is highly competitive with existing XBB variants and appears to be on track to become the next type of globally dominant variant group,” said Dr. T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Guelph. in Ontario, which has been following the evolution of the virus that causes covid-19.
The mutation in the JN.1 spike is in a position that Gregory says appears to help the virus escape our immunity.
Studies by researchers at Columbia University and in China suggest that there is approximately a two-fold decrease in the ability of our antibodies to neutralize this subvariant.
While this is not a huge drop, it could herald another wave of infections on the horizon.
Several countries in Europe (including Denmark, Spain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands) have seen exponential growth of JN.1 and, with it, an increase in hospitalizations. It is also growing rapidly in Australia, Asia and Canada.
That’s happening in the United States too, thanks to waning immunity. Too many Americans have chosen to forgo the latest round of Covid-19 vaccinations, and may have passed up last year too.
As a result, their immunity has not had the important improvements that help the body defend itself against the worst consequences of Covid-19 infections.
The good news is that a recent study from Dr. David Ho’s lab at Columbia University found that the current Covid-19 vaccine, which was designed to boost the body’s ability to fight the XBB family of variants, also offers good protection against BA. 2.86 and its derivatives, including JN.1.
That finding “strongly supports the official recommendation to widely apply updated Covid-19 vaccines to further protect the public,” the study authors wrote.
Last week, the World Health Organization issued a statement supporting improved Covid-19 vaccines against XBB.1.5 because of the broad protection they offer against a variety of variants.
“Fewer people are getting the booster and fewer people are getting Paxlovid,” an antiviral that can reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from Covid-19, said Dr. Alex Greninger, deputy director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at the University of Washington.
“There was a lot of work to get those vaccines and get those medications available, so it’s very sad when those tools aren’t used,” he said.
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