The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is currently tracking coronavirus variant called EG.5.
The WHO upgraded the status of EG.5 from a variant under monitoring to a variant of interest, suggesting that the organization views the variant as one that should be tracked and studied further.
The symptoms of the EG.5 variant do not appear to differ from those of previous strains, which include sore throat, runny nose, cough, upper respiratory infection (URI), and low-grade fevers.
In a risk evaluation report published by the WHO on Wednesday, August 9, 2023, it said EG.5 “remains a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths.”
EG is a spinoff of the XBB recombinant strain of the Omicron family, and it represents another incremental tweak to the virus.
CNN reports that the new variant is topping the leaderboard in the United States, causing about 17% of new COVID-19 cases, according to the latest estimates from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
EG.5 is also growing quickly in Ireland, France, the UK, Japan, and China.
Dr. David Ho, a professor of microbiology and immunology, has been testing these variants in his lab at Columbia University to see how resistant they have become to the antibodies.
He told CNN that EG.5 and the next most common lineage, XBB.1.16, are only slightly more resistant to neutralizing antibodies in the serum of infected and vaccinated people.
Clinically, he said, these variants do not seem to be causing different or more severe symptoms than the viruses that came before them.
“It basically has some more immune escape compared to the ones that were precedents in this XBB series,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Scripps Translational Research Institute. “It has an advantage, which is why it’s getting legs all around the world.”
