Covid cases have started emerging across the county and more so in Delhi NCR. Should we be worried about the new variants ?

The World Health Organization had announced on Monday about tracking down the new two sub variants of the Omicron strain which is highly contagious.

The sub variants named as BA.4 and BA.5, are turning into concerns for the experts as they mutate it would evade the immune system in those people who have taken the jab or who was down with the virus.

The Reuters said that the agency have been tracking the sub variants in order to check for any “additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential.”

Immune escape is concerning

As the new variants are being looked into experts are trying to find if any mutations have occurred and whether these mutations are detected by the immune system which is more likely to cause diseases that could be severe.

The director of the Institute for Autoimmune and Rheumatic Disease at Saint Joseph Health, Dr. Robert G. Lahita said to Healthline that “immune escape” or “immune evasion” occurs when the immune system in a person cannot detect the virus.

Lahita said that, “Now, with Omicron BA.2, there is immune escape, so that’s why people who are vaccinated get infected."

Lahuta says that if the mutations allow the variant to evade our immune response then it is more easy and we would have lower respiratory disease and the outcomes could be worse.

The study on the variants is very limited. There are dozens of cases that are being reported which involves these variants and it have been detected by the WHO.

In a recent finding the UK Health Security Agency stated that, the BA.4 and BA.5 sub variants have mutations happening on the spike protein and this is what makes it different from BA.2 and other forms of SARS CoV 2.

Sources - https://www.healthline.com/health-news/new-sub-variants-of-omicron-detected-what-to-know-about-ba-4-and-ba-5#Immune-escape-is-concerning