The variants of Covid-19 increase as much as the letters of the Greek alphabet. And if what worries the most is the Delta, that is the former Indian, which has caused infections in Great Britain to spike again, creating outbreaks in Italy, to scare virologists, now it is the Epsilon variant, the latest mutation of the virus .
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So even if the overall new cases of Covid-19 in Italy are decreasing, the proportion of those caused by the Delta variant is increasing. Eleven variants under observation and, of these, the most worrying are five, all now widespread in dozens of countries around the world. The latest addition is the Epsilon, which a study conducted by the University of Washington and published in the magazine Science it considers to all intents and purposes one of the variants under observation that are worrying, the so-called Vocs (Variants of concern). To make it rise in the ranking are the characteristics of its Spike protein, with which the virus attaches itself to cells, which includes three mutations that would make it resistant to antibodies, both to those generated by the vaccine and to those generated by the infection.
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In practice, the Epsilon variant could – as is already happening with Delta and Pfizer in Israel – reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine (which however would avoid serious stages of illness and hospitalization). In Europe, however, there are currently just 100 cases and in Italy only two. Its diffusion is limited, but obviously it cannot be ruled out that it may become one of the dominant ones. Currently, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of the United States include the variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta in the VCO group.
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In Italy the dominant variant remains that of Alpha, that is, the former English. However, according to the report of last June 22 of the Istituto Superiore della Sanità, it is the Delta that is spreading, to the point of supplanting the old mutations of Covid until the end of the summer. At the moment, in Italy, among the cases of contagion, Delta is already at 22.7%, Alfa remains dominant (57.8%), Gamma (ex Brazilian) is up 11.8% while neither Beta (formerly South African) nor Kappa (sub-variant of Delta). Epsilon, which is the most feared, instead it should only concern two cases. Meanwhile, our country can enjoy stable data, as underlined by the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, even if, he says, the “guard must be kept high” especially with regard to the variants “that make the challenge more difficult”. And against the variants the response of the immunologists is univocal: the two doses of vaccine.
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