Eris (EG.5) is now the world’s predominant Covid variant: in fact, it reached 26.1% of total infections in the week of August 7-13, overtaking Arturo (22.7% in the same week) and becoming the most spread worldwide. “Unclassified” for the time being Pirola (BA.2.86), the heavily mutated newcomer for which there are still too few deposited sequences.

WHO surveillance of circulating Covid variants

Erisexplains theWorld Health Organization in their latest weekly update on the situation of Sars-CoV-2 showed a significant increase in prevalence over one month, i.e. compared to the week of July 10-16, when it represented 15.4% of the samples sequenced.

Meanwhile, the other interesting variant, viz Arthurmaintained a stable trend, although a larger number of countries (109, compared to 57 reporting Eris) were reported. octopus (the variant before.

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The weight remains undetermined Pirola: BA.2.86 was classified as a supervised variant on August 17, and as of August 30, 21 available sequences from 7 countries were reported (five in the European region, one in the African region and one in the Americas region). One case had a travel history from a western Pacific country where BA.2.86 has not yet been reported.

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The effects of Pirola are still being evaluated

To date, there have been no Pirola-related deaths. The potential impact of the high number of mutations is currently unknown and under evaluation, according to the WHO, which is calling for increased surveillance, sequencing and reporting activities.

The other variants

As for the other monitored variants, BA.2.75 applies centaur (which is now below 1%) and XBB.1.9.2 (4.6%) showed decreasing prevalence trends, while the rest remained stable. Including Hyperion (XBB.1.9.1), which is currently the third most common variant (13.2%).

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