\n<\/p>\n
BA.3.2, an Omicron variant of Covid-19 with dozens of new spike mutations, has been detected in 29 US states and Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but experts say there is not yet evidence it is more severe than other recent variants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe right response to BA.3.2 is serious attention, not alarm,\u201d says Dr Jake Scott, a Stanford professor and infectious disease expert who authored a systematic review of Covid vaccines for the New England Journal of Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a striking variant, with substantial changes in its spike protein, and it makes sense that the World Health Organization\u2019s vaccine composition group has already flagged it for discussion at its May meeting,\u201d Scott said, adding that WHO had classified BA.3.2 as a \u201cvariant under monitoring\u201d, while thus far declining higher risk designations. In addition to vaccines, WHO recommends masking and improved ventilation in high-risk environments \u2013 to prevent all Covid-19 infections and related risks, such as long Covid.<\/p>\n
Scott said that, according to WHO, \u201cBA.3.2 has not shown a sustained growth advantage over any other co-circulating variant, and no data indicate increased severity, hospitalisations or deaths associated with this variant.\u201d In the US, BA.3.2 still accounts for a low percentage of overall Covid-19 infections that have been analyzed, according to the CDC, but Scott said that, \u201cin parts of Europe, it rose to a substantial share of sequenced cases without a clear signal of worse clinical outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marc Veldhoen, an immunologist at the University of Lisbon, agreed that in many ways, BA.3.2 was just a typical subvariant of Omicron: \u201cThis means biologically no major differences have been reported or are expected: it is Omicron Sars-CoV-2.\u201d Symptoms are similar to those of other respiratory infections. While some media outlets have referred to BA.3.2 as a \u201chighly\u201d or \u201cheavily\u201d mutated variant, Veldhoen said that \u201cheavily mutated is relative; Sars-CoV-2 is nearly 30,000 base pairs long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current vaccines appear to be working as intended against the new variant, according to Veldhoen and Scott, although it is possible that the mutation will play a role in how next year\u2019s vaccine is updated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question that actually matters is whether BA.3.2 meaningfully erodes protection against severe disease,\u201d said Scott, who added that as of now, all evidence shows that it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
While Scott admitted that \u201cantibodies that target the spike protein can lose some effectiveness when the virus changes significantly,\u201d he noted that \u201cvaccines and prior infection also build a deeper layer of immune memory, one that goes beyond antibodies and can recognize and fight the virus even after it has mutated.\u201d That protection has been durable across variants, he said, \u201cand it\u2019s a major reason protection against hospitalization and death has remained more resilient than protection against infection\u201d.<\/p>\n
For the moment, public health officials, the general public and doctors do not need to change their behavior in response to this variant, Veldhoen said. Vaccine researchers, on the other hand, should be continuing to track the variant in order to determine how to best update the vaccine, Veldhoen added.<\/p>\n
Scott acknowledged another concern some researchers have raised about BA.3.2. In the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (Gisaid) database, which includes all reported sequencing data available on Covid-19, BA.3.2 is \u201coverrepresented in pediatric samples relative to adults in several countries, and that pattern appears real\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Scott said he would \u201cbe cautious about the leap from \u2018more commonly sequenced in children\u2019 to \u2018preferentially infects children\u2019 in any clinically meaningful sense\u201d.<\/p>\n
Scott noted: \u201cSequencing data reflects who gets tested and whose samples get sequenced, not who actually gets infected.\u201d<\/p>\n
While adults with mild infections are less likely to get tested and have their results sequenced these days, children with symptoms are more likely to be tested, and seen in clinical settings where their virus will actually be sequenced. Another possibility that both Scott and Veldhoen noted is that children are more likely to be infected simply because they have less accumulated exposure than adults to different Covid-19 variants over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly, there is no current signal that BA.3.2 is causing more severe disease in children,\u201d Scott said, adding that until there was, the pattern was worth noting but not catastrophizing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal was never to prevent every infection. It was to keep people out of the hospital. That protection has proven more robust than the variant-by-variant headlines often suggest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BA.3.2, an Omicron variant of Covid-19 with dozens of new spike mutations, has been detected in 29 US states and Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but experts say there is not yet evidence it is more severe than other recent variants. \u201cThe right response to BA.3.2 is serious attention,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4222,24102,5333,4049,320,150,1763,18482,21279],"class_list":{"0":"post-47897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alarm","9":"tag-ba-3-2","10":"tag-covid","11":"tag-detected","12":"tag-experts","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-urge","15":"tag-variant","16":"tag-vigilance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}