Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has officially ended, ongoing global monitoring has led the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare a new Variant of Interest (VOI).
The VOI, EG.5, is a sublineage of the Omicron Variant of Concern (VOC). According to GISAID, two cases of the new VOI were detected in T&T, first on June 29 and then on July 13.
EG.5 was first reported on February 17 and designated as a variant under monitoring (VUM) on July 19.
A WHO release on its Initial Risk Assessment noted that as of August 7, 7354 sequences of Omicron EG.5 were submitted to GISAID from 51 countries. The largest portion of sequences are from China (30.6 per cent) followed by the United States (18.4 per cent) and the Republic of Korea (14.1 per cent). Other countries with at least 100 sequences are Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, and Spain.
While the WHO notes with concern the VOI's growing prevalence globally, it places its public health risk as "low."
"While EG.5 has shown increased prevalence, growth advantage, and immune escape properties, there have been no reported changes in disease severity to date. While concurrent increases in the proportion of EG.5 and COVID-19 hospitalizations (lower than previous waves) have been observed in countries such as Japan and the Republic of Korea, no associations have been made between these hospitalizations and EG.5," the WHO said.
It, however, noted that due to its growth advantage and immune escape characteristics, EG.5 may cause a rise in case incidence and become dominant in some countries or even globally.
