While the pandemic in Italy has recorded downward curves in recent weeks, albeit still maintaining high numbers in terms of cases and deaths, weapons are being sharpened in view of next autumn when the threat of the SarsCoV2 virus could recur: it now seems almost certain that the first move will be to revaccinate the population with a second booster but probably starting from 50 or 60 years of age, using the new adapted “anti-variant” vaccines currently being studied and which should arrive at the evaluation of the European Medicines Agency ( Ema) by the summer.
The new sub-variants
All while increasing attention to the new variants that emerge. On 12 April the variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus called Xf was isolated and sequenced in Cesena, for the first time in Italy, a sort of fusion between Delta and Omicron and already widespread in England with about 100 cases. On 8 April, the variant Xj (after Finland and Thailand) was sequenced in our country (by the provincial health authority of Reggio Calabria): it too, like Xe, is not actually a new variant of the SarsCoV2 virus, but a recombinant one. That is, it is the result of the recombination of the two most common sub-variants of Omicron: BA.1 and BA.2.
Situation (for now) under control
At the moment, however, Franco Locatelli, the president of the Higher Health Council reassured him, “there are no elements of concern.” And also according to the Director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health Gianni Rezza, the recombinant variants in Italy “are still sporadic and do not pose particular alarm conditions”.
Variant Xe not sequenced in Italy
So far, other recombinants have also been identified in the world, such as Xd (born from Omicron and Delta), and Xa, Xb, Xc and Xh have also been reported. But not in Italy. Just as no sequence of the new sub-variant Xe is currently reported in our country.
Gone Alpha and Delta, Omicron dominant
The Alfa and Delta variants have long since disappeared in Italy, overwhelmed by the 100% dominant Omicron, with 80% of cases due to the BA.2 sub-variant. This is indicated by the analyzes of the advanced Ceinge-Biotechnologies, based on data from the international Gisaid and Ncbi Virus banks, in which the genetic sequences are deposited. “It is normal for the virus to mutate and recombine: this is how viruses do it,” observes geneticist Giuseppe Novelli, of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. “It’s not a strange phenomenon, but it can easily happen when different versions of a virus coexist in the same person, such as sub-variants BA.1 and BA.2.”