New mutations of Omicron sub-variants keep popping up all over the world, but aren’t necessarily cause for concern. The youngest, a sub-variant called X BB.1.5, is gaining ground in the United States. It also circulates in France “at fairly low levels” but does not currently arouse “particular concern”, the agency said on Friday. Public health France in his weekly update. “Between 30 and 50 sequences” of this variant have been identified on the territory in recent weeks, which means that it is circulating in the country “at fairly low levels”, indicated Justine Schaeffer, expert on variants at the agency. sanitary.
This grandson of the Omicron family of Covid-19 is spreading rapidly in the United States, especially on the East Coast and the New York area. “We are awaiting data but the positive point is that there has been no signal of increased severity” noted by the American authorities, reported Justine Schaeffer.
Reassuring data
If it imposes itself in Europe, will it be able to modify the current epidemic dynamics? Hard to say at the moment. “The severity data is rather reassuring, at this stage there is no particular concern,” she added. For the moment, a single study, carried out in vitro, has not shown immune escape to antibodies of this sub-variant compared to what has been observed with the previous variants.
Last week, the slowdown in the circulation of SARS Cov-2 was also accentuated on national territory. The incidence rate has fallen sharply in all age groups in a context of a significant drop in the screening rate, particularly among those under 60 years of age. The number of new hospitalizations remained high, but decreasing for the second week in a row, according to Public Health France.