While the peak of the pandemic may be over, the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate, with multiple variants circulating in every country.
But despite this, testing and surveillance have declined, with experts urging people to continue to take the threat of this disease seriously.
“The world has moved on from COVID, and in many ways that’s a good thing because people can stay protected and keep themselves safe, but this virus hasn’t gone anywhere. It circulates. It’s changing, it’s deadly, and we have to keep moving forward. up,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the COVID-19 technical lead at the World Health Organization (WHO), told Euronews Next.
What are some of the most common COVID variants today?
All variants in circulation today are sub-lines of Omicron, a highly transmissible variant of COVID-19 that first emerged two years ago.
One underline, EG.5, also called Eris, currently represents more than half of the COVID-19 variants circulating worldwide. It was declared a variant of interest by the WHO in August.
Cases of EG.5 increased over the summer but were recently overtaken in the United States by a closely related subvariant called HV.1. This subvariant now accounts for 29 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“HV.1 is essentially a variant derived from EG.5.1 (and previously Pekosz. of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University in the US, Euronews Next told us.
Pekosz, who studies the replication of respiratory viruses, said these variants likely emerged as random mutations as part of the natural evolution of viruses.
According to the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), XBB 1.5-like variants such as EG.5 – or Eris – are currently dominant and account for around 67 percent of cases in EU/EEA countries.
The prevalence of another Omicron sublineage mentioned BA.2.86 is “slowly increasing globally,” according to the WHO, which recently classified it as a “variant of interest.” Its sequences were first reported in Israel and Denmark in July and August.
“BA.2.86, when it emerged, was something that really worried scientists because it was a variant that had a large number of mutations, especially in the spike protein, which is the target of the protective immunity that drives vaccines and infections give you. ,” said Pekosz.
Scientists believe this variant likely originated in a person with a compromised immune system that allowed the virus to multiply more quickly and accumulate mutations, but it has not yet come close to dominance.
However, French authorities recently said that most cases of BA.2.86 in the country were a new subline JN.1, which “has been discovered in other countries but is circulating mainly in Europe and especially in France.”
It appears there are more mutations that make it more transmissible, Pekosz said.
Should we be concerned about the new variants of COVID?
RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, are known to pick up mutations faster than other viruses “because they make more mistakes and don’t have the ability to fix those mistakes,” Pekosz said. .
SARS-CoV-2 and its spike protein also appear to tolerate many mutations, similar to what scientists see in influenza.
But so far, even though scientists are paying attention to these mutations, they’re not seeing any changes in the severity of the disease, and the tests we use still detect the virus.
These new variants will continue to emerge and “for the most vulnerable in society, especially those with certain underlying health conditions, they will continue to contribute to hospitalizations and even deaths,” said Andrew Pollard, a professor of infection and immunity at New York University. Oxford.
However, Pollard does not expect them to “restart a pandemic” as there is strong population immunity worldwide from vaccination and previous infections.
While new families of COVID-19 are “likely generated by mutation,” none are “as successful as the Omicron variants that dominate,” he said. “At least for now.”
The worst-case scenario would be a new variant that spreads faster and causes more severe illness that the vaccines don’t work against.
“We take nothing for granted. We have different scenarios that we are taking into account when it comes to the variants and their detection,” said Van Kerkhove, who is also the WHO’s interim director for preparedness and prevention of epidemics and pandemics.
Declines in testing and surveillance ‘challenging’
At this time, these variants are not causing another major surge in cases or hospitalizations, and while experts say there is still enough sequencing to detect emerging variants, these efforts have waned.
“What we’ve lost lately is the ability to really get a sense of all the diversity that’s present in these virus populations,” Pekosz says.
Van Kerkhove encouraged people to continue getting tested if they think they have COVID-19, as this will allow scientists to track the virus and later sequence it to study possible mutations.
“If you don’t get tested, you can’t be sequenced,” she said.
Reductions in testing and sequencing, as well as increased delays in getting the data, “are a major challenge for us and slow down our ability to conduct risk assessments of each of these subvariants,” she added.
Most importantly, even as the world continues to evolve, experts recommend that people get vaccinated, wear masks in crowds or around people at higher risk for severe COVID-19, and get tested to prevent its further spread.