There new variant KP.2 has already been detected in Italy, it is running in the USA and is the cause of 1 in 4 cases of Covid. “Americans are worrying about this latest variant which derives from Jn.1. KP.2 has three interesting mutations but in the USA they are worrying a little too much”, epidemiologist Massimo Ciccozzi, among the authors of an all-Italian study – Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome (Francesco Branda, Chiara Romano) and University of Sassari (Fabio Scarpa and Alessandra Ciccozzi) – dedicated to the KP.2 variant and sent to the journal ‘The Journal of Infectious Diseases’ .
What we know about the KP.2 variant
“It is true that one of these mutations is at site 455, a ‘flip mutation’, which changes the amino acid and destabilizes the structure of the protein. But it does not mean that it is more immunoevasive – it does not evade anti-Covid vaccines – than the other variants or more dangerous. It resembles the Delta variant, but lacks a mutation on the next site and is not as aggressive as Delta has been. From our study it emerges that there are no risks of greater virulence and evasion of the immune system, it will tend to replace the previous variants”, underlines the expert.
“As usual, there is a tendency to confuse evolutionary fitness with contagious fitness – continues Ciccozzi – For example, Ebola did not evolve because, despite its great contagiousness and virulence, it killed almost all its hosts. And this is not the case for Sars-Cov-2: in short, evolutionary fitness and the ability to adapt are one thing, contagiousness and severity are one thing. If the ability to adapt increases, the severity of the disease decreases. without creating unnecessary alarm.”
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