Centaurus Covid variant: Why are experts concerned about this new strain? All you need to know
Premium- Omicron BA.2.75 sub-variant, which has been first detected in India in early May, has been nicknamed Centaurus.
If you have heard of the COVID variant “Centaurus", and wondering what it is, don't panic immediately. It is not a new variant but a subvariant of Omicron. The BA.2.75 sub-variant, which has been first detected in India in early May, has been nicknamed Centaurus.
In India, BA.2.75is rapidly displacing the previously dominant BA.2 variant in many countries. Apart from that, the cases have also steeply risen in the UK. So far, it has been detected in 10 other countries, including the UK, US, Australia, Germany and Canada.
Why experts are worried about Centaurus - Omicron BA.2.75?
Experts noted that BA.2.75, which likely evolved from BA.2, contains extra mutations that might be concerning. “This could mean that it has had the chance to evolve an advantage over an already successful virus lineage, said Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds, as reported by The Gaurdian.
“It’s not so much the exact mutations, more the number/combination," said Dr Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, adding, “It’s hard to predict the effect of that many mutations appearing together – it gives the virus a bit of a ‘wildcard’ property where the sum of the parts could be worse than the parts individually."
What World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Centaurus - Omicron BA.2.75?
WHO said that till now only a limited number of sequences are available to analyze. “There are about 200 sequences available from about 14 countries. Our understanding of this virus is quite limited so far because we have very few sequences available," WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove confirmed.
However, hinting that it looks different from previous variants, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said, “This subvariant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor bindings of the spike protein. So obviously that's a key part of the virus that attaches itself to the human receptor. So we have to watch that."
It is still too early to know if this subvariant has properties of additional immune invasion or indeed of being more clinically severe. And whenever there is a virus that looks different from a previous one, enough to call a separate variant of concern, WHO will keep track of it closely, she went on to add.
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