A potential new variant of Covid-19 discovered in the sewers of New York

An article published on February 3, 2022 in the prestigious journal Nature reports a new variant of the coronavirus, discovered in the sewers of New York. This one doesn’t have a name yet. It could come from humans or from rats. Should we be worried?

Since the start of the pandemicvariants of coronavirus follow one another: Alpha, Delta, Omicron… and more recently the sub-variant of Omicron BA.2. If for many, Omicron could ring the end of the pandemic, the director general of the WHO is of a different opinion. In his speech of January 24, 2022he stated: on a global scale, the conditions are ideal for theemergence other variants “. Indeed, the more virus circulates, the more it has the possibility of mutating and therefore of giving rise to new variants. The vaccination massive population and the respect for barrier gestures are for the moment the only means at our disposal to limit the occurrence of these.

In this context, monitoring the emergence of new variants that are potentially more dangerous or more contagious is essential. Like many other citiesNew York analyzes the wastenot only to monitor the level of circulation of the virus but also to detect potential new variants as early as possible.

A new variant potential

The authors of this study reported the increasingly frequent detection of a previously unidentified coronavirus sequence in data base existing. It is therefore potentially a new variant, which would have a large number of mutations in common with the Omicron variant. The authors performed experiments in vitro. This would have the ability to infect humans, rats and mice. Even more worrying, this one would be resistant to different classes ofmonoclonal antibodies.

Where does it come from?

The authors put forward different hypotheses to explain the presence of this potential new variant in wastewater. First, it could be a variant from human excrement, which would have slipped through the cracks of sequencing. Second, more likely it could come from reservoir animals rodents like the rats in the sewers. Even if the original strain of the coronavirus did not affect rodents, the variants that appeared later are capable of it.

No evidence of current virus circulation in rats or humans has been established. Nevertheless, the researchers indicated that it is plausible that this variant will one day spread to humans.

At this stage, we lack data and hindsight to know if this potential new variant could one day infect humans and be more dangerous than Delta or more contagious than Omicron. However, having this type of data as far upstream as possible is extremely useful for making health decisions.