Thailand Medical News Team Fact checked by:Dr. Aug 28, 2023 1 year, 2 months, 1 day, 17 hours, 54 minutes ago
BA.2.86 News: Researchers have identified two BA.2.86 sequences in Portugal.
https://twitter.com/JosetteSchoenma/status/1696114557532471407
Interestingly, the researcher concerned who is an highly-esteemed professional in his/her field of work has recorded that with the discovery of the BA.2.86 variant sequences in Portugal…the total number of sequences detected so far are only 13 from 6 different countries…i.e. Israel, Denmark, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa including Portugal.
He/she has disregarded the claims that BA.2.86 was found in Switzerland, Thailand, Spain and Germany …which makes us to question the validity of those earlier claims by certain individuals involved with waste water monitoring!
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/ba-2-86-news-ba-2-86-supposedly-found-in-waste-water-of-many-countries-including-spain,-germany-new-claims-that-only-linked-to-hiv-infected
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-thailand-news-sars-cov-2-ba-2-86-variant-detected-in-waste-water-samples-in-thailand-according-to-local-expert
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/ba-2-86-news-swiss-scientists-confirm-that-sars-cov-2-ba-2-86-variant-detected-in-waste-water-samples-collected-from-laupen;-canton-bern,-switzerland
Already there were fake
BA.2.86 News disseminated by Indian media and google news about the detection of the BA.2.86 variant in China and even about the symptoms associated with BA.2.86!
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-news-ba-2-86-has-not-been-detected-in-china-as-claimed-by-fake-news-disseminated-by-indian-health-site--but-yes,-covid-19-gradually-rising
https://twitter.com/ThailandMedicaX/status/1695394017465503935
Quiet honestly although it was us at Thailand Medical News that first broke the story on the morning of the 15
th of August about the detection of this SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineage that had more than 30 mutations on it, even before it was designated as the BA.2.86 variant, as from the latest data, we think that people should not really so concerned about this new variant as it does not have the relevant variant fitness or mu
tations that make it highly transmissible.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-researchers-worried-about-new-sars-cov-2-variant-first-identified-in-israel-and-now-in-denmark-that-could-be-called-the-ba-x-variant
In fact, based on an hypothesis by a researcher who claims that it is the result of intra-host evolution in HIV infected individuals who are taking certain antivirals and are infected with particular sub-lineages and this new sub-lineage is not even passing form humans to humans, we should not be so worried despite the presence of so many mutations on it and some linked to increased immune evasiveness.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/ba-2-86-news-ba-2-86-supposedly-found-in-waste-water-of-many-countries-including-spain,-germany-new-claims-that-only-linked-to-hiv-infected
More concerning at the moment is the emergence of a new SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineage in India that has a set of triple spike mutations on it that enhances fusogenicity which can lead to increased disease severity!
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-covid-19-news-forget-sars-cov-2-ba-2-86,-11-sequences-of-new-variant-discovered-in-india-with-triple-mutations-that-enhances-fusogenicity
This new sub-lineage is derived from an already highly transmissible sub-lineage i.e. XBB.1.16 which makes scientists more worried. India was where the Delta variant emerged and it will be of no surprise if another more worrisome variant emerges from the country again considering their lax in testing and overall surveillance coupled with deceptive practices when it comes to revealing actual COVID-19 statistics!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/16/health/global-covid-deaths-who-india.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-says-15-million-have-died-from-covid-19-pandemic-11651755496
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-60981318
For the time being, readers should start taking their own preventive measures including masking, washing hands, social distancing, using air filters and air disinfectant and taking the relevant prophylactics etc.
For the latest
BA.2.86 News, keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.
Read Also:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-covid-19-news-two-genomic-sequences-of-ba-2-86-detected-in-south-africa-total-number-of-ba-2-86-cases-stands-at-9-across-5-countries