The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Thursday 5 January published an assessment of the XBB.1.5 sub-variant of interest of SARS-CoV-2.
This recombinant variant is attached to the XBB sub-lineage and has a mutation in the spike protein: S486P.
ECDC currently believes that it has a significant growth advantage over lines circulating previously in Europe and North America due, presumably, to its potential for vaccine escape from XBB combined with a higher potential for transmission and/or vaccine escape from the S486P modification.
The Centre points out that these estimates are associated with significant uncertainty and does not rule out the possibility that this variant will have an increasing effect on the number of Covid-19 cases in the European Union and the European Economic Area in the medium term.
However, ECDC does not expect this effect to be seen in the next month, due to the low levels of presence of the sub-variant in the EU/EEA at present. More info: https://aeur.eu/f/4t2 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)