The EG.5 variant of Covid-19 has become the most prevalent in China and now accounts for 71.6% of Covid infections in the country, the official English-language China Daily reported on Monday.
The data, published over the weekend by the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicate a sharp increase in the number of infections by this subvariant, which last April corresponded to just 0, 6% of total infections. .cases in the country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed EG.5 as a “variant of interest”, however, has not indicated that it represents a greater threat compared to other strains. Anyone who contracted an infection with the Omicron subvariant XBB between April and June may have some immunity against EG.5, according to the organization.
According to the CDC, the spread of EG.5 has not exerted significant pressure on the Asian country’s hospital system and is unlikely to cause mass outbreaks.
“There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that EG.5 can cause severe symptoms,” the CDC said, as quoted by China Daily.
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned in early August that while the overall risk is low, the global spread of EG.5 could contribute to an increase in covid cases. -19 in different parts of the world.
“There is no doubt that the risk of death or serious cases is now much lower than a year ago, due to the increasing immunization of the population thanks to vaccines and infections, but despite the improvement, the WHO continues to consider that the virus poses a high risk to public health,” added the Ethiopian expert.
Although the WHO declared an end to the international emergency on May 5, Tedros Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the “virus continues to circulate in all countries and continues to kill and mutate.”
Since the start of the pandemic, at the end of 2019, the WHO has registered almost seven million deaths worldwide, making the health crisis one of the most serious since that caused by the Spanish flu in 1918.
Compared to the worst moments of the pandemic, when more than 20 million weekly cases were reported worldwide (as of early 2022 with the Omicron variant), only around 10,000 infections were reported in Europe and 20,000 in the United States, in July, although the numbers were still relatively high in the Asia-Pacific region (288K positive).
Source: TSF
