Covid, increase in cases recorded throughout Europe. It is a complex and uncertain situation, the one that in many countries sees a growth in Coronavirus cases linked to the circulation of new variants.
It is an increase also expected in Europe and which is already being announced in Great Britain, but according to the European Center for Disease Control it is “unlikely” that levels similar to the peaks observed in the past can be reached. It is certainly advisable to get vaccinated, especially for the elderly and frail and the new vaccination campaign was also recently announced in Italy, by a circular from the Ministry of Health.
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In the USA as in Europe, authorization is awaited for the new vaccines, aimed at the variants in circulation. Above all, there are two variants currently considered to be mainly responsible for the increase in cases of Covid-19, and both are among the latest additions to the large Omicron family.
The first is EG.5or Eris, indicated as responsible for the recent increase in cases observed in Great Britain since July, so much so that some British experts, such as Christina Pagel of University College London, believe that there are grounds for a new wave.
The second variant is part of the family XBB.1.5, this Kraken. At the beginning of July it had begun to slip away, but now a mutation in the amino acid F456L has appeared which makes transmission easier, to the point that the ECDC has decided to classify the versions of the virus that have this mutation as a Variant of interest.
Then there are sufficient elements to predict an increase in cases in Europe under the pressure of this variant, says the ECDC, even if the peaks observed so far during the pandemic are “improbable”.
In Italy, the Ministry of Health has announced a new flash survey of the variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in circulation, to be conducted on virus samples taken from 21 to 27 August. Thus the monitoring of the epidemiological trend continues, “even in a situation of absolute tranquility”, without “any alarmism but also no underestimation”, observes the director general of health prevention of the ministry, Francesco Vaia, commenting on the most recent data in a note on the epidemic in Italy, which in the last week have seen a 4.4% reduction in positive cases and 16.4% in deaths, while the positivity rate marks an increase of 1.3%.
It is in the light of this picture that the new vaccination campaign scheduled for the autumn is being prepared. According to the circular from the Ministry of Health, the anti-Covid-19 vaccination “will be concomitant with that against seasonal flu” and based on messenger RNA and protein vaccines, updated against the Xbb.1.5 variant”. The approval of the new vaccines by the European Medicines Agency, and then by the Italian Medicines Agency, is expected between the end of the summer and the beginning of the autumn, and the vaccines should be available in October.
In the United States, where cases and hospitalizations are increasing under the pressure of the EG.5 variant, the new vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna are expected by September. An appropriate vaccination campaign, according to the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, and which will help avoid deaths and serious forms of the disease, protecting the elderly and frail.
The current international epidemiological state shows the circulation of new variants of Omicron which are causing an increase in cases in various countries, which therefore requires the utmost attention to evaluate the future trend, observes Simit. In Italy – he continues – there is an increase in the number of cases and about ten deaths persist every day, a figure that is far from negligible. We are therefore faced with a complex epidemiological situation.