2023-11-07 17:16:00
While winter is upon us, many respiratory viruses are already circulating massively within society. If the latest wastewater analysis report carried out by Sciensano demonstrates a slight drop in covid-19, experts expect a wave in the coming weeks.
Belgium receives a 5.5/10 for its Covid management, experts react: “We must progress because the next virus could be worse than Covid”
“There is a slight decrease but we remain at a high level,” indicates virologist Steven Van Gucht. And at the same time, we are starting to see that the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which most infects the lungs and respiratory tract, is progressing, just like the flu but more sporadically in our country. According to our forecasts and the work of the University of Antwerp, we expect a new wave of covid within a few weeks but it should not pose too many problems for hospitals.
Epidemiologically, it is still the Eris variant (EG.5.1), a sublineage of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and closely linked to other variants that have circulated throughout the world, which remains dominant here. But it is another heir of the large Omicron family that concerns virologists, it is the new BA.2.86 variant of COVID, called Pirola, which is currently spreading in the United States and Europe.
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Faced with the collapse of testing, it is difficult to know to what extent the virus is circulating in Belgium.
This newcomer, considered a “supervariant”, is particularly closely monitored due to a greater number of mutations, which makes it likely to evolve more significantly and spread more easily.
Women more affected
“According to the latest reports, we understand that he could partly escape the immunity provided by vaccination or previous infections,” he specifies. Faced with the collapse of testing, it is difficult to know to what extent it is circulating in Belgium but we know that it is not dominant, for the moment. This is why we must remain vigilant while following its evolution. Its other particularity is its significant asymptomaticity, which greatly complicates its detection. Despite this, we cannot say with certainty that it will prevail here given the large number of variants currently circulating, we in fact have a soup of variants that coexist in Belgium.”
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The probability of seeing the conjunction of different winter epidemics occurring at the same time is high”
If the infection results in mainly ENT symptoms (sore throat, cold), diarrhea is also possible, as are eye damage and severe fatigue. “And as was the case with other variants in the past, we note through various studies that women are more affected by the virus, in particular because they are more represented in contact and proximity professions, particularly in the field of health care, continues Van Gucht. If this newcomer is closely followed, it must however be remembered that it does not call into question the effectiveness of the vaccines against Covid which are currently available”.
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to classify this new variant in the category of variants under surveillance due to the very large number (greater than 30) of mutations in the Spike protein which allows SARS- CoV-2 from entering host cells. And more generally, if Covid occurs all year round as this autumn epidemic shows, Covid epidemics prove to be more serious and of greater magnitude during the cold season when we are more in closed places while the windows are less often open. “Thus, the probability of seeing the conjunction of different winter epidemics occurring at the same time is of course high, causing risks of temporary saturation of the health system and in particular hospitals as we experienced last December and January in Europe. the west,” concludes Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist, doctor and director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva.
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