Omicron subtype BA.2: Top experts assess corona variant
Created: 01/26/2022, 18:56
By: Johannes Nuss
In Scandinavia, the new corona subvariant of the omicron subtype BA.2 is on the rise.
It has also been discovered in Germany.
What is known about it.
Berlin – While the well-known corona variant of omicron BA.1 is still spreading in Germany, Lower Saxony and Bremen, the omicron subtype BA.2* is already on the rise in Denmark.
This may mean that an even more easily transferable omicron subtype is spreading rapidly in some countries - but many questions about the omicron subtype BA.2 are still unanswered.
This is “undoubtedly already present everywhere, to varying degrees,” said the Bremen epidemiologist Hajo Zeeb of the German Press Agency.
Virus: | Coronavirus |
Surname: | COVID-19 |
pathogens: | SARS-CoV-2 |
First known case: | December 1, 2019 |
Newly discovered Corona subvariant of Omicron | Subtype BA.2 |
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the omicron subtype BA.1 has been dominant in Germany, although BA.2 already exists, but only to a small extent.
According to experts, the data is still too sparse, as there is no information on the transmission and severity of the BA.2 disease.
It is also not known whether this corona variant can bypass the existing immune or vaccination protection.
Corona expert Ciesek on corona subvariant omicron subtype BA.2: evidence in Germany and neighboring countries
Germany, the neighboring countries France and Austria as well as a number of other countries have already detected the new corona subvariant of the omicron subtype.
In Denmark, where the omicron subtype BA.2 is on the rise*, the mutation is now responsible for around half of all corona cases, according to the state health institute SSI.
"Because it can be observed in different countries that the proportion of BA.2 is increasing, it is assumed that BA.2 has an advantage in terms of transferability compared to BA.1," said Sandra Ciesek, Director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the Frankfurter University Hospital.
According to the biophysicist Richard Neher from the University of Basel, this assumption is also reasonable.
However, scientific evidence is still lacking.
The corona subvariant of the omicron subtype BA.2 has already been detected 38 times in Germany.
In Denmark it could soon be the dominant variant.
(Iconic image) © Uwe Anspach/dpa
In addition to a higher transmissibility, a stronger immune escape could lead to more and more people becoming infected with BA.2, explained Ciesek.
Immune escape means that a previous infection or vaccination protects less well against the pathogen.
Omicron subtype BA.2: initial assessments suggest a mild course of the disease
"Very early observations from Denmark suggest that there doesn't seem to be a big difference between BA.1 and BA.2 in the mild course of the disease." However, reliable clinical data was still missing here as well.
According to virus variant expert Neher, however, one thing is certain: the advantage that BA.2 has over BA.1 is smaller than that of Omikron over Delta.
According to the experts, it is uncertain where the subtype comes from.
He's not new.
BA.2 could thus be detected shortly after the appearance of omicron.
The subtype is a "sister lineage" of BA.1 - both are omicron subvariants, rather than one having evolved from the other.
Even if the two variants BA.1 and BA.2 are largely identical, they have different mutations.
Corona subvariant Omicron subtype: Difficult to distinguish between BA.1, BA.2 and Delta
Another important difference: BA.2 lacks a mutation that was initially used in certain PCR tests to distinguish between omicron and delta.
"BA.2 was initially incorrectly described as a 'stealth mutation' because this variant does not differ from Delta in this mutation," explained virologist Ciesek.
Typically, however, either several different mutation PCRs would be performed or the genome would be sequenced, so labs could certainly distinguish between BA.1, BA.2, or Delta.
According to the latest RKI weekly report, BA.1 was detected 1568 times in a random sample in the first week of January, while BA.2 only appeared 38 times.
(With material from the dpa)
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