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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
With the arrival of autumn, experts and the government are wondering about a potential 8th wave of Covid-19. If for the moment, no sub-variant seems to take the ascendancy, two sub-variants of Omicron are still closely followed.
The Centaur variant and the BA.4.6 sub-variant. These names may mean nothing to you. These are two sub-variants of Omicron, which are being watched by scientists.
What do we know about them?
The BA.4.6 sub-variant is a sub-variant of Omicron’s BA.4 variant. It has an additional mutation compared to BA.4 and BA.5: the R346T mutation. Highly monitored in the United States, the researchers noticed that it was increasingly the source of new infections, from 7 to 10% according to the American CDC. But it is not the majority variant, BA.5 remains dominant.
In France, it is estimated to be responsible for around 2% of cases of contamination. Monitored by health authorities, it appeared in June. For Public Health France, “this emergence of new sub-lineages is a normal and expected evolutionary phenomenon“.
The Centaur variant, or BA.2.75 variant appeared in India, where it is the majority. It has also been detected in Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. In France, although it is monitored, this new variant does not currently inspire concern. It has, however, been declared by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control to be “under surveillance”.
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An inevitable wave?
“What we don’t know is how big it will be.“, commented the Minister of Health, François Braun, but “it will restart and there will be a vaccination campaign which will resume in the fall“. For the moment, the BA.5 sub-variant remains the majority, at 95%, as Public Health France recalls in its report of September 7 on the subject.
Asked about the subject, Dr. Gérald Kierzek, emergency doctor and medical director of Doctissimo, wants to be reassuring and shares the point of view of Public Health France: “Once again, we are on a normal evolution of a virus, the vast majority of cases are mild. The monitoring of these new sub-variants must remain virological and not media-based” concludes the doctor.