Thailand Medical Authorities On Alert As Researcher Claims That New BA.2.87.1 Sub-Lineages Found In Wastewater Samples In South-East Asia!
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Mar 06, 2024 9 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes ago
Thailand Medical authorities are on alert as a Sri Lankan researcher currently based in Japan has claimed that that the BA.2.87.1 sub-lineages have been detected in wastewater samples in South-East Asia. This is extremely interesting as this is the first time that there is any mention of the detection of the BA.2.87 or its sub-lineages BA.2.87.1 being detected out of South Africa since it was identified in early February 2024.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/debut-of-ba-2-87-and-ba-2-87-1-is-a-warning-that-sars-cov-2-is-evolving-at-an-unprecedented-rate-and-is-heading-towards-worrisome-trajectories
BA.2.87.1 Sub-Lineages Found In Wastewater Samples In South-East Asia
Dr Leshan Wannigama who had previously completed his PhD at the Chulalongkprn University in Thailand, and currently based in Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences in Japan had posted online that the BA.2.87.1 sub-lineages had been found in waste water samples in South East Asia. He was also involved in waste water monitoring in Bangkok.
https://twitter.com/dr_leshan/status/1764186732701094143
He stopped short of identifying which South-East Asia countries in which these sub-lineages had been detected in and also he did not provide any further evidence of his claims but the rest of the ‘variant hunters’ online seem to have agreed with his claims.
Thailand Medical authorities, researchers and doctors have stepped up genomic surveillance in the country and hospitals are closely monitoring the situation. However, to date, there has been no official announcements that the BA.2.87.1 has been detected in the Thailand and it could possibility other South-East Asian countries that he was referring to.
A recent German research has been published as a preprint identifying the properties of this new BA.2.87.1 sub-lineages. Some of the unique properties of the BA.2.87.1 are worrying with implications of possible increased risk of disease severity upon being infected with such sub-lineages!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.27.582254v1
Interestingly the BA.2.87.1 sub-lineages were detected in waste water samples between December 2023 last week and January 2024 second week in South-East Asia according to Dr Wannigama.
https://twitter.com/dr_leshan/status/1764419784345575451
This raises a lot of questions as to whether the BA.2.87 variant originated in South Africa or elsewhere.
Interestingly after the BA.2.87 and its sub-lineage BA.2.87.1 was detected in South Africa, where 9 sequ
ences of these were initially identified, there was a sort of a media blackout on emerging genomic SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineages and sequence uploads on GISAID have also dropped substantially! There was not much reports about further detection of BA.2.87 variants and its sub-lineages.
Certain doctors and researchers also have a hard time when they identify new SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in certain countries as the health authorities and politicians in these countries do not like such news being disseminated as it thwarts their efforts in concealing the true COVID-19 situation in their countries as they want to project an image that everything is ok!
South African researchers involved with SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance after a recent tie up with an a Wellcome Sanger, a British research institute that is backed by the many big Pharmas, have also stopped revealing much about emerging variants and sub-lineages in South Africa!
https://sangerinstitute.blog/2024/02/27/meet-professor-tulio-de-oliveira-forging-a-genomic-surveillance-partnership/
There are many anomalies that
Thailand Medical News has been observing in the last 4 years with regards to identifying SARS-CoV-2 variants and sub-lineages and which sub-lineages are being chosen and monitored and the criteria for such selections etc plus the fact that all decisions to designate a sub-lineages are undertaken just by one young individual in based in an entity in Switzerland that is not directly or officially linked to the WHO and in which the young biostatistician involved has an active relationship with the WEF! Furthermore, while certain works are done on a collective basis with individuals coming various countries and walks or life, there is no proper organization, security vetting and background checks on the qualifications and backgrounds of some of these individuals. Some of their works begets questions for instance a certain Chinese scientist always simply focuses on identifying emerging variants only in India!
Another anomaly for instance is in Brazil especially in Mato Grosso. While Brazilian researchers identified the JN.2.5 sub-lineage as driving the surges there, there is no mention by these variant hunters involved with the Swiss entity or its platform Cov-Spectrum and neither is the JN.2.5 variant seen anywhere when current circulating variants for Brazil are searched on the CoV-Spectrum platform.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/brazilian-news-sound-alarm-about-detection-of-ba-2-86-spawn-jn-2-5-after-the-variant-was-found-driving-covid-19-hospitalizations-in-canada
https://cov-spectrum.org/explore/Brazil/AllSamples/Past6M
Also, the labs in UK, Switzerland, Japan, USA and Germany doing studies on immune evasiveness, transmissibility and other properties of SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineages, completely ignored the JN.2.5 variant!
The same goes for other variants circulating in India such as the JN.1.11 and its spawns.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-covid-19-news-new-jn-1-11-that-thailand-medical-news-warned-about-leads-silent-surge-in-india-with-244-cases-detected-so-far
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-news-briefs-jn-1-11-and-spawns-rising-fast-in-india-young-people-dying-at-worrisome-rates-in-finland-jn-2-5-causes-brazil-s-carnival-cancella
Thailand Medical News will be doing a separate expose on anomalies, in accuracies and possible bias in the identification of SARS-CoV-2 variants and sub-lineages in a collaboration with a few other media.
It should be noted that Dr Leshan Wannigamma has also been involved in the past with the promotion of Fluvoxamine to treat COVID-19!
https://www.posttoday.com/politics/682327
It was speculated that certain 'dubious' groups were behind this project to use fluvoxamine to treat COVID-19 such as groups linked to Zero COVID initiatives, the WHN and the NECSI including a Thai forest monkl from the North!
Hence, we recommend readers to be slightly skeptical till more details and proper validated evidence emerges about the detection of the BA.2.87.1 variants in South-East Asia.
For the latest COVID-19 News, keep on logging to
Thailand Medical News.
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