A new strain of Covid which is causing concern among scientists due to its high number of mutations has been found in a patient in the UK.
The variant, named Pirola, was already detected in a number of countries before arriving here, with experts worried that it could have the capacity to evade immunity from vaccinations or previous infections.
‘We are aware that BA.2.86 has been detected in the UK,’ said UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)’s deputy director Meera Chand.
‘UKHSA is assessing the situation and will provide further information in due course.
What is Pirola, does it cause more severe illness and will the vaccine hold up against it?
Pirola – also known as BA.2.86 – has been named by scientists after ‘an asteroid that hangs out near Jupiter’.
It is a subvariant of the Omicron strain which descends from the BA.2 variant, which led to widespread cases at the start of 2022.
It’s said to have over 30 mutations to its spike protein – the part of the virus that allows it to invade human cells – which has raised fears that it could evade current treatments and vaccines, as well as natural immunity to infection from a previous bout of Covid.
‘BA.2.86 is the most striking SARS-CoV-2 strain the world has witnessed since the emergence of omicron,’ said Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology and director of University College London’s Genetics Institute.
Writing in the BMJ he said: ‘Interestingly, all 30-plus mutations on that long branch are found in the spike protein—through which the virus gains entry to cells—which is the target of neutralising antibodies.’
The variant was first detected in Denmark on July 24, with nine cases so far being confirmed around the world, in Israel, South Africa and the UK, as well as being found in wastewater in Switzerland and the US.
The confirmed case in the UK came from a person who had no recent history of travel, indicating that it may be spreading here – although it’s still unclear whether it could be more infectious than previous strains.
‘More data are needed to understand this Covid-19 variant and the extent of its spread,’ the World Health Organisation said.
‘But the number of mutations warrants attention. WHO will update countries and the public as we learn more.’
At this stage it’s not yet known whether Pirola causes different symptoms to other Covid variants.
The current symptoms of Covid, according to the NHS website, are as follows:
If you test positive for Covid current NHS advice is to try and stay at home for five days and avoid contact with other people.
You should call NHS 111 if your symptoms or those of a child’s are getting worse rather than better – and in the event of an emergency such as severe breathlessness, coughing up blood or collapsing, you should dial 999 or go to A&E.
It’s not yet known whether Pirola causes more severe illness than other strains of Covid.
Once again it’s too early to say whether current vaccines and treatments will work against Pirola.
However the Center for Disease Control in the US has noted that existing tests and treatments appear to be effective against the new variant.
Jesse Bloom, a computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute in Seattle, said in the BMJ: ‘While neutralising antibodies provide best protection against infection, there are also broader mechanisms of immunity elicited by vaccination and infection that provide some protection against severe disease even for very heavily mutated variants.
‘So even if [it] starts to spread, we will be in a better place than we were in 2020 and 2021, since most people have some immunity to SARS-CoV-2 now.’
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