COVID-19 News: International Alert Raised About The Discovery In Australia Of New BA.5.7 And BM.2 Sub-lineages Spotting A Variety Of Mutations!
COVID-19 News - New BA.5.7 and BM.2 Sub-lineages in Australia Dec 02, 2022 1 year, 11 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 2 hours, 47 minutes ago
COVID-19 News: According to the latest United Kingdom technical briefing on SARS-CoV-2 variants, an international alert has been raised about the identification of new BA.5.7 and BM.2 sub-lineages spotting a variety of mutations!
According to the report, concerns were raised on a cluster of BA.5.7 sequences from Australia, due to more nucleotide synonymous transition mutations (purine to purine or pyrimidine to pyrimidine) than expected.
Besides the mutations defining the BA.5.7 lineage and a number of synonymous mutations, it was found that these sequences included 2 mutations resulting in amino acid changes; S:Y453F and Orf1a:A1679T.
As of seven days ago, the cluster contained 9 samples but has since been detected in even more sequences.
Researchers are monitoring these sequences.
Also, another cluster of 9 Australian sequences of lineage BM.2 is also being monitored.
It was reported that this cluster also contains a higher number of transition mutations than expected as well as the following spike mutations; D111N, S151N, V289I, T549I, D574N, A701V, L841, V1230M.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1120304/technical-briefing-48-25-november-2022-final.pdf (Page 4)
To date, local Australian
COVID-19 News sources claims that all sequences were from hospitalized patients exhibiting disease severity but there are no substantial evidence yet that this is true.
However, there is some reason to believe that there must be some thing concerning about these lineages if not the UK government and also other health authorities around the world would not be so concerned about only these two sub-lineages as there are currently more than 700 odd new variants and sub-lineages and recombinant variants in circulation with a variety of mutations on them. Many more still emerging on a daily basis and even simply selecting the ones that have more viral fitness and growth advantage are causing virologists and researchers a hard time identifying them all and listing them down.
https://cov-spectrum.org/collections/24
Some experts however believe that these two new sub-lineages could be exhibiting either enhanced pathogenesis or a difference in pathogenesis due to the new spike mutations being able to attach to other newer receptors in the human host besides the ACE2 receptors.
More details should be out in the following week as a team of British, American and Australian researchers are doing a study of these new variant clusters in Australia.
In the meanwhile, the American government is also in the midst of developing its own platform on the various emerging SARS=CoV-2 variants and sub-lineages and also those are predominant in circulation. The site should be completely ready in a week’s time.
="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/activ">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/activ
Reports are also emerging that a new variant BQ.1.22 is slowly displacing the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 in terms of being predominant in circulation in the United States and also in Canada.
https://cov-spectrum.org/explore/United%20States/AllSamples/Past6M/variants?pangoLineage=BQ.1.22&
https://twitter.com/RajlabN/status/1598511135854149632/photo/1
Interesting, hospitalizations are also increasing in the United States and Canada but again there is no evidence yet that this new BQ.1.22 variant causes more disease severity or increased mortality.
There is however not much data about the mutations found on the new BQ.1.22 sub-lineage or about it growth advantage, transmissibility or immune evasiveness yet. Most of the virologist or researchers in this field are more preoccupied with their Christmas plans and bonuses at the moment!
For the latest
COVID-19 News, keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.
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