WHO classifies 'Eris' Covid strain as 'variant of interest'

The World Health Organization WHO has classified the EG5 strain of the SARSCoV2 virus circulating in different parts of the world including India as a variant of interest but said it did not seem to pose more of a threat to public health than other strainsEG5 or Eris variant of SARSCoV2 was first reported on February 17 this year and designated as a variant under monitoring VUM on July 19In its latest risk evaluation on Wednesday the WHO designated EG5 and its sublineages as a variant of interest VOIVariants are broadly categorised into three categories 1 variants of interest 2 variants of concern and 3 variants of high consequenceAccording to the US National Institutes of Health NIH VOIs are defined as variants with specific genetic markers that have been associated with changes that may cause enhanced transmissibility or virulence reduction in neutralisation by antibodies obtained through natural infection or vaccinationEG5 is a descendent lineage of Omicron subvariant XBB192 It carries an additional mutation in the spike protein which the SARSCoV2 uses to enter and infect the human cells compared to the parent subvariantWithin the EG5 lineage the subvariant EG51 has an additional spike mutation and represents 88 per cent of the available sequences for EG5 and its descendent lineages the WHO saidAs of August 7 7354 sequences of EG5 have been submitted to GISAID the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data from 51 countriesThe largest portion of EG5 sequences are from China 306 per cent 2247 sequences The other countries with at least 100 sequences are the US the Republic of Korea Japan Canada Australia Singapore the UK France Portugal and SpainIn India only one case of EG5 has been reported so far from Pune in May this yearGlobally there has been a steady increase in the proportion of EG5 reported During epidemiological week 29 July 17 to 23 2023 the global prevalence of EG5 was 174 per cent according to WHOBased on the available evidence the public health risk posed by EG5 is evaluated as low at the global level aligning with the risk associated with XBB116 and the other currently circulating VOIsWHO in its risk evaluation report noted that while EG5 has shown increased prevalence growth advantage and immune escape properties there have been no reported changes in disease severity to dateWhile concurrent increases in the proportion of EG5 and COVID19 hospitalisations lower than previous waves have been observed in countries such as Japan and Korea no associations have been made between these hospitalisations and EG5However due to its growth advantage and immune escape characteristics EG5 may cause a rise in case incidence and become dominant in some countries or even globally according to the global health bodyWHO and its Technical Advisory Group on SARSCoV2 Evolution TAGVE continue to recommend that countries prioritise specific actions to better address uncertainties relating to antibody escape and severity of EG5The global health authority has advised countries to share information on the growth advantage of EG5 and provide sequence information It also urged the member countries to conduct neutralisation assays using human blood samples representative of the affected communities and EG5 live virus isolatesThe WHO and its Technical Advisory Group on COVID19 Vaccine Composition TAGCOVAC continue to regularly assess the impact of variants on the performance of COVID19 vaccines to inform decisions on updates to vaccine compositionThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever