What is EG.5, the new global variant of the coronavirus that could lead us to vaccinations in the fall

The World Health Organization does not seem to trust New variant EG.5 of coronavirus disease, He suspects it will increase the number of cases globally, although it won’t necessarily lead to an increase in the number of cases Hospitalization.but it can affect vaccination campaign before winter. Autumn is flu season.

The World Health Organization would rather put a bandage on the wound in the face of the virus, which nearly wiped out the world, according to stats on Aug. 9 seven million people died There were more than 768 million confirmed cases in a report released on Tuesday, which described the health risk as “low”.However, the World Health Organization describes it as interest variant

“Despite the high prevalence of EG.5, Growth advantage and immune escape properties, the severity of the disease has not changed to date,” the agency said.

this WHO Because of this growth advantage and its immune escape features, the variant is in the lineage of XBB.1.9.2 first reported on February 17, he added, E.G.5 “It could lead to an increase in the incidence of cases and become dominant in some countries or even globally.”

Increasing

within the globe, Prevalence The overall figure was 17.4%, a “significant increase” from the 7.6% reported four weeks earlier (June 19-25).

As of August 7, 7,354 EG.5 sequences from 51 countries have been collected for research. Most of these are from China (30.6%, 2,247 sequences). Other countries with at least 100 sequences are the United States (18.4%, 1,356), South Korea (14.1%, 1,040), Japan (11.1%, 814), Canada (5.3%, 392), Australia (2.1%, 158), Singapore (2.1%, 154), UK (2.0%, 150), France (1.6%, 119), Portugal (1.6%, 115) and Spain (1.5%, 107).