Omicron XBB variant most immune evasive and can evade vaccines: Experts

Hyderabad: Billed as the most immune evasive sub lineage of the coronavirus, the threat from recombinant variant XBB appears to be very real following alerts sounded by state governments of Maharashtra and Kerala. In the last few days, parts of Maharashtra including Pune, Thane and Mumbai have reported a 17 per cent rise in daily […]

Hyderabad: Billed as the most immune evasive sub lineage of the coronavirus, the threat from recombinant variant XBB appears to be very real following alerts sounded by state governments of Maharashtra and Kerala.

In the last few days, parts of Maharashtra including Pune, Thane and Mumbai have reported a 17 per cent rise in daily Covid infections due to the XBB variant, prompting local health authorities to issue a health bulletin alerting that in the coming months, especially during winter, daily Covid infections are likely to rise.

---

The Kerala government also raised a similar alert following a sharp increase in daily Covid infections. The local health authorities in Kerala termed the coronavirus sub lineage XBB and XBB1 as ‘more contagious than the earlier ones’.

The XBB is a recombinant lineage between two Omicron sub lineages BJ.1 and BA 2.75 and it has quickly started spreading across many countries. Genetic experts and public health officials have already acknowledged that XBB has the potential to run through communities, especially during winter.

On Tuesday, union Health Minister, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya urged States to focus on surveillance, particularly through sentinel sites including monitoring of Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI), Influenza like Illness (ILI) cases and conduct more genome sequencing so that new variants of Omicron can be tracked.

According to geneticists, XBB has seven mutations in its spike protein, which makes it difficult for the immune system to detect the virus quickly. By the time the immune system is able to detect the virus, it already would have infected the individual, health officials said.

Experts have also termed XBB as the most immune evasive, having the ability to nullify impact of anti-viral therapies and even the present vaccines, which could lead to an increase in reinfections.