US: CDC keeps eye on new lineage of virus that causes Covid
Representational image of coronavirus. Photograph:( Reuters )
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Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X that it was considering BA.2.86 as a "variant under monitoring"
Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X that it was considering BA.2.86 as a "variant under monitoring"
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday (August 17) that it was keeping an eye on a new, highly mutated lineage of virus that causes COVID-19. The lineage is named BA.2.86. It has reportedly been detected in the United States, Israel as well as in Denmark. The CDC has said this on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
"As we learn more about BA.2.86, CDC's advice on protecting yourself from COVID-19 remains the same," the agency said.
CDC is tracking a new lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19. This lineage is named BA.2.86, and has been detected in the United States, Denmark and Israel. CDC is gathering more information and will share more about this lineage as we learn it.
— CDC (@CDCgov) August 18, 2023
Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X that it was considering BA.2.86 as a "variant under monitoring". It said it was monitoring it due to large number of mutations it carries. The agency said further that only a few sequences of the variant have been reported from a handful of countries.
The new lineage, which has 36 mutations from the currently-dominant XBB.1.5 COVID variant "harkens back to an earlier branch" of the virus, explained Dr. S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist. Dr Long was quoted by Reuters.
He said it remains to be seen whether BA.2.86 will be able to out-compete other strains of the virus or have any advantage in escaping immune responses from prior infection or vaccination.
Reuters quoted \virologist Jesse Bloom, who said that early analysis indicated that the new variant "will have equal or greater escape than XBB.1.5 from antibodies elicited by pre-Omicron and first-generation Omicron variants."
Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is the strain that's targetted by vaccines in upcoming Covid booster shots.
Bloom's slides note that the most likely scenario is that BA.2.86 is less transmissible than current dominant variants, so never spreads widely, but more sequencing data is needed.
"My biggest concern would be that it could cause a bigger spike in cases than what we have seen in recent waves," Dr. Long said. "The boosters will still help you fight off COVID in general."
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