The seventh wave of the continues unstoppable in Spain. The infections They continue to rise, 83,613 new cases, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Health, and more than 12,000 hospitalizations.
In the Intensive Care Units (ICU) there are 508 people admitted. And the cumulative incidence It has risen almost 90 points, standing at 1,225.28 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The worst of the data is the deaths: 471 deaths have been reported.
Given this panorama, in the middle of summer and in Spain, the (WHO) warns of the appearance of a new variant of omicron: centaurus.
The doctor Soumya Swaminatahn, a senior scientist at the WHO, explains that “there has been an emergency, for what could be, a new subvariant.” This sublineage of omicron, which the specialist calls B.2.75has been nicknamed as centaurus and first appeared in India in the month of June.
Its expansion in the Asian country has been alarming. Only in the last few weeks, 23% of the sequenced infections correspond to centaurus. And it grows at a rate of 17% daily.
As Swaminatahn points out, after its appearance in India, it has spread -for the moment- to ten other countries: Japan, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom or Germany.
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“There are still limited sequences to analyze, but this subvariant appears to have some mutations in the receptor-binding domain of the Spike protein.”
. explains what we know about the emergence of a potential Omicron sub-variant ⬇️
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO)
Centaurus: Is it more serious?
“It is too early to tell if this sub-variant has additional storage capabilities. evade immune response or cause more serious illness. We don’t know that. We have to wait and continue monitoring ”, highlights the specialist.
However, Swaminatahn stresses that it is “very different from previous ones” and that it “has enough properties for us to view it with concern” in the scientific community.
More contagious?
Although some details are unknown at this time, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesusdirector of the World Health Organization, has indicated at a press conference that it could be the most contagious variant.
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“This means that it can be up to five times more transmissible than the other omicron subvariants known to date.”
Health alert in New Zealand
New Zealand, one of the countries where the new subvariant has already arrived, has issued a health alert after detecting the first cases last week.
According to experts, “it has some characteristics that seem to improve its ability to evade immunity, similar to those BA.4 and BA.5 subvariantsand there is some preliminary evidence abroad that it may be more transmittable than BA.2.”
This means that it can be up to five times more transmissible than the other omicron subvariants known to date.
They also emphasize, as the WHO has done, to reassure the population, about the possibility of producing a serious illness.
“There is no current evidence that it causes more severe disease, although evaluation of the evidence is at a very early stage.”
Has centaurus arrived in Spain?
No. The latest report from the department of Caroline Darias specifies that “random screenings using PCR for the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages have detected in week 25 of 2022 (June 20 to 26) percentages that oscillate in the different CCAAs between 50% and 89.7% . This same week, for the BA.2 lineage, it is between 8.9% and 44%”.
The mutations present in these lineages represent an important antigenic change (particularly against BA.1) “which gives them greater immune escape”. As with BA.2.75, “until now no differences in the severity of the cases have been observed for any of them”
Regarding the rest of the variants, “they remain at very low levels of circulation.” In the last four weeks analyzed “they reached 0.3% of the total”.