ECDC: percentage below 2.5% in EU countries. Most of the reports come from the USA (4,111 sequences) and the United Kingdom (202)
In European countries less than 2.5%, but in the United States it is galloping. The new Kraken recombinant variant (XBB.1.5), a sublineage of XBB with an additional mutation in the spike (S486P), was first identified in the US on October 22 and has since spread rapidly: today it accounts for 40% of new infections.
In Europe, according to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), there is a risk that this variant could have an increasing effect on the number of Covid cases, but not within the next monthas the variant is currently only present at very low levels.
However, the World Health Organization has wanted to warn countries of potential risks. Recent data from some countries are starting to indicate the growing presence of the XBB.1.5 variant, which is already spreading rapidly in the US. Cases in our region are being detected in small but growing numbers and we are working to assess their potential impact, said Hans Henri Kluge, WHO director for Europe.
Kluge called on all countries to increase genomic surveillance of the virus. Over the past year, he said, many countries have significantly reduced their surveillance capacity for Covid-19. In the first five weeks of 2022, information on the variants in circulation was based on 1.2 million cases, while in the last weeks of the year the reports dropped to around 90 thousand.
We commend the European countries that have maintained strong genomic surveillance, including Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom,” Kluge said. After three years of pandemic we cannot afford any more pressure on our health systems. Such a threat could come from a new variant, anywhere, anytime, even here in Europe and Central Asia. Based on the lessons learned, we must be able to anticipate, detect and respond in time. This applies not only to Sars-CoV-2, but to any emerging health threat.
So Kraken could cause a new wave of cases in Europe but in reality we know little about the new variant, apart from the fact that it has a high diffusion capacity. To date, most of the reports come from the United States (4,111 sequences) and the United Kingdom (202 sequences), but the subvariant has also been detected in several other countries, including European ones: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany , Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. But, underlines the ECDC, the proportion in the EU of less than 2.5% in the last two weeks of 2022 for all countries where it is possible to make an estimate.
According to the data collected so far, XBB.1.5 appears to have a large growth advantage over previously circulating lineages in North America (109%) and Europe (113%). But it is not yet clear whether the variant will become dominant. Rapid growth in the US does not necessarily mean that the variant will become dominant here, since important differences in the circulation of variants between North America and Europe were observed several times during the pandemic – ECDC experts already explain -. There is currently insufficient information to evaluate any change in the severity of infection associated with the variant.
However, it seems that Kraken is able to bind more successfully to ACE2, the receptor present on the surface of the cells of various organs, through which the virus enters the body.
January 10, 2023 (change January 10, 2023 | 4:39 pm)
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