“Need to keep an eye on HV.1”
New Corona variant is spreading rapidly in the USA
November 27, 2023, 12:54 p.m
The coronavirus continues to mutate and continues to produce new variants – including HV.1. The new omicron subtype is currently spreading in the USA and is now responsible for most Covid infections there. Experts explain whether the variant could soon come to Germany and how dangerous it is.
After Eris and Pirola, a new corona variant is now causing a stir: the omicron subtype HV.1 is spreading rapidly in the USA – and is now dominating the infection process. “We have a new Covid variant that we have to keep an eye on,” warned the Vice President of the American Health Association (AMA), Andrea Garcia, recently. “It’s only been a few weeks and HV.1 has become the variant responsible for most Covid cases here in the United States.”
The new variant has been circulating there since the summer and suddenly overtook other variants such as Eris (EG.5) in October. At the end of July, HV.1 accounted for just 0.5 percent of Covid-19 cases in the USA Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show. By September 30th it was 12 percent and in November it was already more than a quarter of the cases.
But what exactly sets HV.1 apart? “You can almost imagine HV.1 as a grandson of Omicron,” said infectiologist William Schaffner from Vanderbilt University to the US portal Today.com. According to the CDC’s Sars-CoV-2 lineage tree, HV.1 is a sublineage of Omicron XBB-1.9.2 and a direct descendant of Eris. Accordingly, HV.1 is not as worrying as Pirola and JN.1 – but it is apparently spreading much faster.
Risk of chronic bronchitis
“Given the similarity of the variants, it is still unclear how exactly HV.1 overtook EG.5,” said Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the “New York Times”. HV.1 only has slightly more mutations than its predecessor. Nevertheless, one of these few additional mutations must have given the new variant an advantage. “Whenever a new variant dominates, it by definition has an advantage,” said the expert. “And the advantage is either easier transmissibility or increased immune escape.”
Infectiologist Schaffner suggests that it is easier to transmit. “That probably explains why it became dominant so quickly in the USA,” said the virologist. The high transferability is a hallmark of the entire Omicron family anyway. However, it is not yet clear whether HV.1 also bypasses immunity. “The problem is that most people’s immunity has waned again and our vaccine uptake is still very low. So it is too early to draw any conclusions about HV.1 immunity,” said infectiologist Priya Sampathkumar told Today.com.
According to Schaffner, the symptoms caused by HV.1 are similar to those of newer variants. These include sore throat, stuffy nose, runny nose, cough, fatigue, headache, muscle aches, fever and chills. In addition, the infectiologist points out that the virus can cause a type of chronic bronchitis with a cough that lasts much longer than other symptoms. Nevertheless, according to Schaffner, there is no evidence that the variant causes more severe illness or leads to more hospitalizations.
Vaccinations continue to protect
Also preventative medicine and medical journalist Dr. Christoph Specht sees no reason to worry. Experts in the USA are rightly “keeping an eye on” the new HV.1 variant, but citizens do not need to have any major concerns, he told ntv. “I assume that the HV.1 variant will also become established in Germany. But based on what we know so far about the new variant, it spreads particularly quickly, but is no more dangerous,” said the doctor.
According to US experts, there is no reason to panic regarding the effectiveness of the currently available corona vaccines. “Laboratory studies indicate that the updated booster vaccination also protects against serious illness caused by HV.1,” said infectiologist Schaffner today.com. The new corona vaccines are based on the previously dominant omicron variant XBB.1.5. adjusted. Since the new variants such as HV.1 are omicron sublineages and therefore closely related, experts assume that there is no danger in this regard.
“HV.1 will by no means be the last variant that the evolving coronavirus presents to us,” says Specht. “We have to get used to it.” However, thanks to vaccination and previous infections, there is a good immunity situation in Germany – no matter which Corona variant comes in the future.