Specialists continue to study them but they agree that they are much more contagious than the previous ones.
The covid-19 virus is spreading once more in the world, mutating and causing the appearance, one following another, of new subvariants in a matter of weeks, which has the world’s health experts on edge as they are increasingly contagious and better able to circumvent immunity from antibodies produced by both natural infection and vaccines.
The most recent version of this mutation are the omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.2.75, the latter better known as Centaurus, but what is the difference between the two?
Omicron subvariant BA.5 is causing more severe symptoms and is more contagious, study says
On the one hand, BA.5 is currently the dominant variant in the world and is generating a new wave of infections: in the week ending July 2, the BA.5 subvariant caused almost 54% of covid-19 cases. in the United States and together with BA.4 they caused almost 70% of the cases in that country.
While Centaurus, detected in India and 12 other countries, is spreading rapidly, which is why the World Health Organization has classified it as a variant of concern under monitoring, as it has eight new mutations in the spike.
Although not much is yet known regarding BA.2.75 or Centaurus, the main difference with BA.5 might be found precisely in the number of mutations in the spike, which is the crown-shaped structure that covers the surface of the virus and is It attaches to human cells in order to infect them, according to Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO).
The subvariant of omicron BA.5 is already worrying in itself because it is more contagious than the original omicron variant, which was already much more transmissible than the delta and this, in turn, than the previous ones.
But Centaurus might be even more contagious than BA.5, and according to the scientists, the eight additional mutations it carries in the spike might make “immune evasion worse than what we’re seeing now.”
Swaminathan, for his part, has said that it is too early to know whether BA.2.75 has additional immune evasion properties or is more serious clinically. “We don’t know, so we have to wait and see,” he added.
Although the chief scientist of the WHO agrees with the experts that each new variant “will be more transmissible and immunoevasive.”
“A higher number of infected will translate into higher hospitalizations and illnesses. All countries must have a data-driven plan to respond quickly to changing situations,” he added in a tweet.
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