The World Health Organization is monitoring a new strain of “Covid-19” called EG.5, or “Eris”, which is accounting for a growing share of cases in countries including China and the United States.
The World Health Organization has classified it as a “type of concern,” which means it will be monitored for mutations that could make it more severe.
Based on current evidence, the World Health Organization says it represents a low risk to public health at the global level, in line with other variables currently in circulation. And in May, the World Health Organization said more broadly that “Covid-19” is now “a fixed and ongoing health problem that no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern,” according to CNBC, which was seen by Al Arabiya.net. .
symptoms and their prevalence
Symptoms of “Eris” have been reported to be similar to the previous variants, including fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, runny nose, and a change in taste and smell.
“While EG.5 showed increased proliferation, growth advantage and immune escape characteristics, no changes in disease severity have been reported to date,” WHO said in a risk assessment published on August 9.
She added that these characteristics may lead to the variable becoming dominant in some countries, or indeed globally.
The variant’s official name is EG.5, while “Eris” is a random nickname given out online that later popularized the “EG.5.1” variant.
Based on sequence information submitted to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) as of August 7, the bulk of EG.5 infections have been identified in China, followed by the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Canada.
It has also been identified in Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal and Spain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, EG.5 is now the dominant strain in the United States, accounting for 17.3% of cases as of the week ending August 5.
Vaccine reformulation
This comes at a time when companies are preparing; Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax to launch new Covid vaccines this fall targeting the XBB variants, which are descended from the Corona omicron variant.
Novavax said its vaccine “stimulates functional immune responses to XBB sub-variants including XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3”.
“EG.5” is a strain descended from a variant that shares a high amino acid profile with “XBB.1.5”.
For his part, Justin Lessler, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, said: “EG.5 is part of the XBB strain and is more closely related to XBB variants than to previous vaccine strains.”
“For this reason, it is expected that the reformulated vaccines that will be available this fall will provide better protection against EG.5 than previous vaccines.”
New vaccines are expected to be available in the United States starting in late September, according to CDC Director Mandy Cohen, as responsibility for vaccine distribution shifts to the private sector.
