XBB.1.5 COVID-19 Subvariant discovered in 25 countries, including Canada, and rising quickly in the United States
A year has passed since Omicron abruptly appeared on the scene, driving COVID-19 case numbers to record highs and fundamentally altering the course of the pandemic.
A family of highly transmissible relatives has now been produced by the variation. While some have mostly vanished, some have fueled tidal waves of diseases.
Recently, many altered iterations of the original Omicron appeared to be engaged in a delicate dance for dominance.
Currently, XBB.1.5 is the front-runner in the United States.
The Omicron branch is expanding quickly south of the border, and according to the American Centers for Disease Control, it will eventually account for almost 40% of COVID-19 cases. In the meanwhile, surveillance statistics in the UK indicate that it accounts for 1 in every 25 COVID-19 infections and may ultimately replace the current prevalent strain.
Given the delays in data collecting from all of the provinces during the holidays, the situation in Canada is much more unclear.
In a statement, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said, “At this point, it is too early to know if the XBB.1.5 variation is increasing in Canada.”
A day later, PHAC said that it is aware of 21 XBB.1.5 detections in Canada; however, the total number may be somewhat higher based on the most recent provincial and regional surveillance data.
According to the B.C. Provincial Health Services Authority, 12 cases of XBB.1.5 had been identified in the Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health regions as of Wednesday. Art Poon, a professor of viral evolution and bioinformatics at Western University, said he is aware of 24 genomes that have been categorised as XBB.1.5 and have been submitted nationally thus far.
These samples, which only represent a “tiny proportion of illnesses,” were primarily taken from Ontario, with one also coming from Nova Scotia and a few others from Quebec.
However, that can certainly change.
Although there are other lineages that we anticipate will also increase in frequency, Poon predicted that it will eventually outcompete the currently predominate BA.5-derived lineages in Canada.
Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) claim that XBB.1.5 was discovered for the first time in October and has since been found in 25 nations.
One of the newest members of a family tree that is “extremely branching, knotted, and complex” is the SARS-CoV-2 subvariant, which developed from Omicron’s BA2 offshoot, according to virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.
The combination of mutations in XBB.1.5 is what distinguishes it as uncommon and makes it interesting to monitor.
A sublineage of XBB called XBB.1.5 was created by recombination. This procedure can happen when a person contracts multiple strains of the same virus, allowing the pathogens to co-mutate inside the same host.
In essence, Rasmussen said, it’s an evolutionary chance that entails “cutting and pasting the two viral genomes together.”
According to Rajendram Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, who has been monitoring the spread of the subvariant, there may be several evolutionary advantages in the case of XBB.1.5.
This may include changes that enable the subvariant to attach to human cells while evading the primary immune systems’ defences.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for the COVID-19 response, said in a statement to the world’s media on Wednesday that the organisation is concerned about the subvariant’s growth advantage and apparent capacity to evade immunity, noting that it is currently “rapidly replacing” other circulating variants in numerous regions.
There is no evidence that the severity of the condition has changed, she continued.
To fully comprehend how this subvariant functions and to establish if it will increase global case counts or just disappear like some of its predecessors, much more study is still required.
Fiona Brinkman, a researcher and variant tracker from Simon Fraser University’s department of molecular biology and biochemistry, stated in an email exchange that there is currently no cause for alarm, but that she and her team are cautiously monitoring this and other variants that appear to have important mutations.
Several specialists expressed worry that the early indications do point to a potential spike in infections of some kind, at a time when hospitals are already under a great deal of stress.