Andrew Buncombe
in Seattle
16 September 2024 10:46pm
Scientists have warned that a new variant of Covid – known as XEC – is spreading across Europe and the United States.
Reports of people catching the new variant have emerged in the UK, and other European nations such as Denmark and Germany.
Now doctors in the US are also reporting a small number of cases and predicting it appears set to spread.
It is set to be the “next challenge” for doctors, nurses and healthcare systems, experts said.
“At this juncture, the XEC variant appears to be the most likely one to get legs next,” Dr Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He said it may take “many weeks, a couple months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave”.
Experts believe the new variant is not likely to as deadly as some of the other mutations that previously presented a challenge for doctors and nurses and that it ought to respond to vaccines currently available.
The symptoms are also similar to those of other Covid variants – tiredness, headaches, a sore throat and high temperatures.
Earlier this summer, the US was dealing with the biggest surge in Covid cases since 2022. The so-called “Summer of Covid” was believed to have triggered in part by events such at the Olympic Games in Paris.
More than 80 countries saw a spike in cases, with the most common type of the virus being what is called KP.3.1.1.
“We’ve seen these summer increases every summer that Covid as been with us,” Dr Amesh Adalja, a Johns Hopkins University infectious disease physician, told the Associated Press. “What’s different about these cases this summer vs prior summers is that they don’t translate into hospitals in crisis.”
In August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved new vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna and urged people to get vaccinated.
“We strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated Covid vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA vaccine chief Dr Peter Marks.
Now, doctors are preparing for the new XEC variant.
Dr Andrea Garcia, a vice president with the American Medical Association (AMA) recently told health industry professionals that “deaths from Covid were low compared to where they were in previous years, but they did increase in late August”.
She added: “The other thing to keep an eye on, and we know doctors and scientists are keeping an eye on this as well, is yet another subvariant, and that is XEC that could surpass KP.3.1.1 in the coming weeks.”s
She said: “It was first detected in Germany, and while it’s been detected here in the US, the prevalence is low and there’s not a lot of data on this new subvariant at this point in time.”
The post New XEC Covid variant spreading in the US, doctors warn appeared first on The Telegraph.
