The importance of the third dose and the use of masks against the omicron variant 2:56
(CNN) -
A new version of the omicron variant of the new coronavirus is drawing the attention of scientists, as it becomes the dominant variant causing Covid-19 in some parts of the world.
Experts say there is no reason to panic about the new version of omicron, called BA.2, which was first spotted in mid-November.
Since then it has spread to 49 countries, including the United States.
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This is how a doctor responds
The "mixed messages" about the new version of the omicron variant
"Of all the versions of ómicron, this is the one that shows the greatest increase in cases. But you have to be careful when interpreting that, because the highest increases from a very low number are easier to observe," Ramón Lorenzo explained. -Redondo, assistant professor of medicine for infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.
Like the more familiar version of the omicron variant, BA.2 includes a large number of changes, around 20, focused on the spike protein, the part of the virus targeted by vaccines.
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But, unlike the omicron, it does not have a distinguishing feature that is detected in laboratory tests: the so-called s-gene target failure.
Which means the new version may look like other variants of SARS-CoV-2 at first.
This has caused some to call it "the stealth variant".
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However, Lorenzo-Redondo points out that this name leads people to think that the new version cannot be detected in laboratory tests.
Which is not true, he said.
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"There are mixed messages on this issue. Both FDA-approved home and lab tests should detect this version, as well as the other [version] of omicron BA.1," he said.
What we know
There is no evidence that BA.2 causes more severe disease or spreads more easily than the parent strain of omicron.
A report from Britain's Health Security Agency, published on Tuesday, offers more evidence in this regard.
Research suggests that current vaccines protect against BA.2 as well as against the original version of the omicron variant, with better protection against symptoms – an average of around 70% – two weeks after a booster dose.
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The variant of the virus that researchers have named omicron includes multiple viral families.
The BA.1 family is the cause of almost all omicron infections in the United States.
A second family, the BA.2 clade, is now beginning to gain ground in other countries, notably India and Denmark.
In Denmark, the BA.2 version of the omicron now accounts for about half of all new Covid-19 cases, according to a statement from Denmark's Statens Serum Institute.
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On Thursday, Dr. Sujeet Kumar Singh, director of India's National Center for Disease Control, said the BA.2 had become the dominant omicron version there.
BA.2 has also been detected in South Africa and the UK, where it was designated as a variant under investigation by the UK Health Security Agency.
An investigational variant means that it is spreading in the country and is being watched because it can spread more easily from person to person or has characteristics that make it more resistant to treatments or vaccines.
Will the new version of the omicron variant spread in the US as well?
Approximately 100 cases caused by BA.2 have been reported in the United States from at least 20 states, according to the sequence sharing website GISAID.org.
The BA.2 version of the omicron variant currently accounts for less than 1% of COVID-19 cases in the US, according to Outbreak.info, a Scripps Research data project.
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At Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, researchers sequence the viral genomes of every positive case of covid-19 they find.
Of more than 4,000 genomes sequenced since the beginning of the year, they have only found three cases of the BA.2 sublineage, said Dr. Wesley Long, medical director of Microbiology.
Will it spread here as it has in India and Denmark?
"I think it's still too early to tell," Long replied.
Ómicron changed the shape of the pandemic.
Will it end forever?
Viruses change or mutate all the time.
Most of these changes are not harmful.
But occasionally a virus will change in a way that will help you become more competitive.
It could be passed from host to host more quickly, for example, or attach to cells more easily.
Long says it's hard to know why the BA.2 version of the omicron variant is gaining traction in certain countries.
It could be that it has some sort of advantage over the original omicron variant, or maybe both BA.1 and BA.2 were introduced around the same time, so they were able to spread at about the same rate.
But he says scientists will be watching those countries closely to follow how the situation develops in the coming weeks.
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Scientists say the new version of the omicron variant is not surprising.
In fact, they pointed out, it was anticipated because approximately half of the world's population has not yet been vaccinated against covid-19.
"I would be very surprised, with the current state of the world's population in terms of immune status, if we didn't see more variants emerging," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with the Organization for Vaccine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Saskatchewan.
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