COVID 19 What we know about the Pirola variant discovered

COVID 19. What we know about the “Pirola” variant discovered for the first time this Thursday in France

Not long ago, the Omicron subvariant nicknamed “Eris,” circulating in around fifty countries, seemed to be worrying health authorities. Since August 17, a new Omicron variant, BA.2.86, has been closely monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and added to the list of variants to be tracked.

The case discovered in Catalonia on August 15 was discovered in France this week, the French health agency said, saying that this first case had been registered in the Grand Est region.

The Pirola variant has more than 30 mutations compared to the dominant variants and is a cause for concern. Here’s what we know about him after a first case was discovered in France.

More than thirty mutations

Although BA.2.86 is far from being a predominantly recognized variant, the WHO and American health authorities quickly added it to their list of variants to monitor. And for good reason, the one we now call Pirola is very different from the dominant variants we already know.

In our columns, on August 21, the head of the national reference center for respiratory infection viruses (including influenza and Covid-19) and expert in evolutionary genomics of RNA viruses at the Pasteur Institute, Étienne Simon-Lorière, explained that the Pirola variant was due to his monitored “A large number of changes compared to BA.2, which appears to be its closest ancestor.”

Infectious disease specialist in Brisbane, Australia, Dr. Paul Griffin, told Australian media SBS News that the Pirola variant was included “More than 30 amino acid changes in the spike protein, which is similar to what we saw in the formation of Omicron.”

Detected in around fifteen countries

The variant was first detected in Israel and Denmark in August. Since then, cases have been confirmed in the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, South Africa, Portugal, Thailand, Switzerland, Spain, Canada and, as of Thursday August 31, France.

As France 3 Occitanie reported on Wednesday August 30, the variant had been at the gates of France since August 15, the date of its discovery in Catalonia.

Where does the Pirola variant get its name from?

As the British daily Evening Standard explained in an article published on August 24, the WHO only assigns Greek letters to the variants under surveillance. As before with Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma…

The informal nickname Pirola was suggested by a user of the social network X (formerly Twitter) who describes himself as a scientist and modeler of infectious diseases. On August 28, in a new publication on the social network, he clarified that it is not an official name of the WHO. The WHO is still taking care of official designations. It decides to only name variants with a high incidence, he explains. If BA.2.86 becomes a problem and the WHO decides to call it Pi, then the name will be Pi and not Pirola. »

What concerns does the variant raise?

Due to its numerous mutations, this sub-variant raises many questions that currently remain unanswered. On August 18, the WHO clarified this “additional data” was “necessary to understand this variant” And “the extent of its spread”, The addition “the number of mutations” justified vigilance.

When Étienne Simon-Lorière spoke about the many changes coming to Ouest-France, he explained some of them “fallen“t in areas that are well recognized by the antibodies and that adhere less well to them,” stating that the question still exists “to know whether the benefits obtained by vaccination with the bivalent vaccine remain the same.”

Nevertheless, the expert would like to reassuringly address possible severe forms of the disease. “There are no concerns about serious forms. The spike protein (which is attacked by the immune system) remains largely the same and is recognized, particularly by the cellular response that is activated in people who have been vaccinated or come into contact with the virus. And there are not many people left who have not come into contact with SARS-CoV2. »