Image of the latest Omicron BA.2 variant spike
BENGALURU: Reiterating that it is “absolutely normal” for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes Covid-19, to continue to evolve, and that each variant of concern (VOC) is just a punctuation in the evolutionary story of the virus , scientists say the latest ‘BA. 2’ sub-lineage should not cause undue concern.
Prof Seshadri Vasan, CSIRO Australia’s Covid-19 project leader and an expert on how the virus has been evolving, said: “The latest VOC Omicron’s lineage B. 1. 1.529, which originated from a specimen collected on November 9, 2021, already includes three sublineages BA. 1, B.A. 2 and B.A. 3, but this should not cause undue concern. ,
Pointing out that BA. 2 (short for “B. 1. 1. 529. 2), shares 32 mutations with the original Omicron lineage BA. 1 (short for B. 1. 1. 529.1), including well-known spike mutations such as N501Y, P681H and D614G, Vasan said, there are also 28 mutations which are different.
“Notably, B.A. 2 does not have the spike deletion ‘ 69-70’ which is present in Omicron BA. 1 and Alpha VOC. Both B.A. 1 and B.A. 2 lack L452R and P681R spike mutations which are characteristic of Delta VOC. These properties are useful to distinguish between the different variants and sub-lineages using existing sequencing technologies,” Vasan said.
CSIRO’s analysis of the global repository — GISAID — shows that as of January 28, 18,751 BA. 2 sequences have been reported from around the world and 91% of the sequences were from three countries: Denmark (14,371), the UK (1,371) and India (1,249).
“Globally, researchers including my team at the CSIRO, are studying the properties of this sub-lineage in comparison to Omicron BA. 1 and Delta to see for instance if it’s more contagious, or will lead to immune escape or more severe disease,” Vasan said.
“So far, evidence from our colleagues in Denmark show that while it could spread faster, there is no evidence of increased severity. Therefore, it is important to keep calm and continue existing measures such as getting vaccinated, including the booster dose, and following social distancing, masks and local lockdown guidelines. ,
Vasan’s team has been collaborating with the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science, and has shown that the institute’s nextgeneration ‘Mynvax’ vaccine is effective against Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta VOCs. “Currently we are repeating this evaluation against Omicron,” Vasan added.
Also, his team is midway in a $1. 7 million ‘sySTEMs’ initiative to identify promising Covid drugs that are approved for some other indication. “We will be evaluating our lead candidates against Delta as well as BA. 1 and B.A. 2 sub-lineages of Omicron,” he said, adding that this project has global partners including pharmacy and machine learning professors from India’s BITS Pilani.
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