Netherlands detects ‘Centaurus’ Covid subvariant feared to be ‘most contagious version yet’ – which has also been found in UK, US and Germany
- The BA.2.75 subvariant, nicknamed ‘Centaurus’, first emerged in India in May
- It has since spread to around 10 countries, including the US, UK and Germany
- Now, it ‘has also now been identified in the Netherlands,’ the Dutch National Institute of Public Health said in a statement on Wednesday
- The substrain appears to be outcompeting all other variants in India
- Experts say there is no evidence it causes more serious disease than Omicron
The Netherlands announced on Wednesday it has become the latest country to detect a case of the Covid Omicron subvariant BA.2.75, as experts expressed concern about the strain’s rapid spread.
The subvariant, nicknamed ‘Centaurus’, first emerged in India in May and has since spread to around 10 countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany and Australia.
It ‘has also now been identified in the Netherlands,’ the Dutch National Institute of Public Health said in a statement.
Some scientists fear the variant may be the most contagious seen yet, and better equipped to evade any immunity from vaccines and previous infection.
But there is no proof it causes any more serious disease than the original type of Omicron it evolved from, leading Covid experts told MailOnline today.
The Netherlands announced on Wednesday it has become the latest country to detect a case of the Covid Omicron subvariant BA.2.75, as experts expressed concern about the strain’s rapid spread. Pictured: A medical worker carries out a Covid test in Amsterdam (file photo)
‘Little is known about BA.2.75,’ the institute said, but it ‘appears to more easily bypass the defences built up against SARS-CoV-2 through small, specific changes’.
The World Health Organisation’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said last week that the UN agency was closely tracking the strain, but there were ‘limited sequences to analyse’.
‘This sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor binding domain of the spike protein… so we have to watch that,’ she said in a tweeted video.
She added that it was ‘too early to know’ how well the strain can evade immunity or how severe it was.
Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP news agency that BA.2.75’s spread in India indicated it could be more transmissible than the BA.5 Omicron subvariant, which has been driving waves in Europe and the US.
‘It seems to be becoming the dominant strain in India – the question is will it become the dominant strain all over the world?’
Flahault added that previous dominant strains, like Delta, had first taken over the country they emerged in before spreading across the world.
But he said there was a ‘margin of unpredictability,’ pointing to how BA.2.12.1 became dominant in the US but BA.5 ‘succeeded’ when the two came in direct competition.
Flahault added that successive variants made developing a vaccine to fight them more difficult, because by the time one jab targeting them was ready to be rolled out, newer strains had taken over.
It was far too early to know about the severity of BA.2.75, he added.
The Dutch sample was collected in the northern region of Gelderland on June 26, the institute said, adding it was ‘closely monitoring the situation’ there.
Earlier this month, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control listed BA.2.75 as a ‘variant under monitoring’.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline today that a BA.2.75 wave could be the least deadly yet.
It is not expected to strike Britain until later this year because it hasn’t yet gained a strong enough foothold to displace BA.5.
What do we know about BA.2.75? Should we be concerned?
What is BA.2.75?
This is an off-shoot of the BA.2 Omicron substrain that caused the last wave of Covid in April.
It was first detected in India in May and has been found in at least 10 other countries, including the UK and US.
Is it more dangerous?
Early analysis suggests BA.2.75 is more transmissible than both BA.2 and BA.5, which is behind the current uptick in cases in Britain.
But there is no evidence to suggest it is more likely to cause serious disease.
Should I be concerned?
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline a BA.2.75 wave could be the least deadly yet.
It is not expected to strike Britain until later this year, with cases too low to start pushing out BA.5 circulation currently.
Professor Hunter said people could have better protection when it does finally arrive because of a combination of the vaccine and recent infection this summer.
Why you DON’T need to worry about ‘Centaurus’: ‘Most infectious’ Covid variant yet is growing rapidly in India and may already be in the UK… but experts say there’s no proof it will send us back to darkest days of pandemic
By Joe Davies Health Reporter For MailOnline
A new Covid variant spreading rapidly in India should not pose any threat, experts insisted today amid claims it may already be circulating in Britain.
BA.2.75, nicknamed ‘Centaurus’, appears to be outcompeting all other variants in the south Asian country after being first spotted there in May.
Some scientists fear it may be the most contagious variant seen yet, and better equipped to evade any immunity from vaccines and previous infection.
But there is no proof it causes any more serious disease than the original type of Omicron it evolved from, leading Covid experts told MailOnline.
It is not yet outcompeting BA.5, the now dominant strain causing an uptick in cases in Britain, and scientists do not know if it ever will.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline a BA.2.75 wave could be the least deadly yet.
It is not expected to strike Britain until later this year because it hasn’t yet gained a strong enough foothold to displace BA.5.
Professor Hunter said: ‘It’s always difficult to say for certain how this going to go. There is a suggestion this is going to spread more if it hits Britain in the autumn.
‘But at the moment it doesn’t look like it will be more deadly than BA.5 and it may even be less deadly because with every wave there is more protection.
‘Current research is suggesting recent infection and vaccination combined offers the best protection, so the current wave could help help protect people from an autumn surge caused by BA.2.75.’
Professor David Livermore, a retired medical microbiologist at the UEA, argued that Centaurus was just the latest in a never-ending line of Omicron sub-strains.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) weekly infection survey found more than 2.7million Britons were infected with Covid in the last week of June
This graph shows the number of deaths directly due to Covid recorded in England and Wales. The number of deaths being recorded these nations currently is far below that of previous waves earlier year and a sheer fraction of those seen at the start of 2021
But only a third of patients are primarily sick with Covid, which suggests rising admissions are a symptom of high infection rates rather than severe disease. The majority (64 per cent) are known as ‘incidental’ cases — patients who went to hospital for a different reason but happened to test positive. The above graph compares incidental cases throughout the pandemic
SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the pandemic, constantly evolves as it tries to spread.
The majority of mutations are harmless.
However, some quirks the virus picks up over time can give it an advantage — like being able to infect people easier.
As SARS-CoV-2 mutates over time, it can splinter off into genetically distinct variants, or strains.
For example, the January 2021 wave was caused by Alpha, last summer’s peak was down to Delta, and the original Omicron strain was to blame for last winter’s peak.
Britain’s April chaos was sparked by the BA.2 substrain, a sub-type of Omicron considered to be nearly as infectious as measles.
The current resurgence, which has already prompted calls for face masks and social distancing to return, is being driven by BA.5. It appears to be even more infectious than BA.2.
BA.2.75 is actually an off-shoot of the BA.2 variant from April, but is thought to be the most infectious of any of them yet, in theory.
Professor Livermore told MailOnline: ‘Experience shows new variants are going to keep rolling through the human population, likely for several years.
‘Omicron BA2.75 is a further example. It is very transmissible, but there is no reason to believe that it causes more serious infection than classical Omicron.’
Pointing to India’s current flare-up, he said there is ‘no evidence of a rise in mortality’.
Analysis of data suggests India’s share of cases down to Centaurus has quadrupled in a month.
Professor Livermore added: ‘The past two years of lockdowns and restrictions have done huge collateral damage to society, education, healthcare and the economy.
‘We must work to repair this, not to extend it with panics about each new variant.’
Others took to social media to calm fears about the variant.
Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, tweeted: ‘Stop trying to make Centaurus happen. It’s not going to happen.’
The sub-strain’s nickname was invented on Twitter, named after a star constellation representing a centaur — a Greek mythological creature that is half human and half horse.
BA.2.75 has been spotted so scarcely in Britain so far that official case figures are not yet available.
It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the UK and Canada.
The weekly growth rate of hospitalisations for the virus — the speed at which rates are increasing — has halved in recent weeks. Average daily admissions had been climbing at a rate of around 40 per cent week-on-week at times last month but this has slowed to about 20 per cent
Latest data shows there were 1,848 Covid admissions across England each day by July 10, which was 23 per cent higher than the previous week. Week-on-week growth has slowed significantly in recent weeks, coming down from 43 per cent in late June, in a promising sign
MailOnline analysis shows how the rate of severe illness from Covid has fallen over time. At the beginning of the pandemic, one per cent of all people infected with the virus (based on the Office for National Statistics infection rate) required mechanical ventilation within two weeks. But most recent NHS bed occupancy rates show just 0.015 per cent of those infected are admitted to an ICU bed – 100 times fewer than the start of the pandemic
Nearly 3million adults in England have not had any jabs to protect against the virus so are at more severe risk of being hospitalised or dying if they get infected, a Government report on the vaccine rollout states. The graph shows vaccine uptake among all over-12s in England. Some 93.2 per cent have had their first dose, 87.3 per cent are double-jabbed and 68.7 per cent are boosted
Dr Matthew Binnicker, a virologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said: ‘It is still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions.
‘But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase.’
Whether it will outcompete BA.5 is yet to be determined, he said.
Despite warnings of another wave in Britain, figure suggest infections may already be slowing.
There were an estimated 2.1million people infected in England in the most recent week, which marked a 17.7 per cent increase in seven days.
That was compared to a 34 per cent jump the previous week.
MailOnline’s analysis of NHS data suggests the current wave of Covid admissions is peaking.
The weekly growth rate of hospitalisations has halved in recent weeks.
Average daily virus admissions had been climbing at around 40 per cent week-on-week at times last month but this has now slowed to about 20 per cent.
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