How effective the new bivalent vaccine will be against the new subvariants is unknown and the answer will emerge as breakthrough infections are tracked, said Bach.Ī study, published in September in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that treatments used to improve symptoms of a COVID-19 infection, including remdesivir, molnupiravir, and nirmatrelvir may also be effective against the BA.2.75 subvariant, but such drugs as REGEN COV may be less effective. He says it is possible the bivalent vaccine may not work against future variants as it can become difficult for scientists developing vaccines to keep up with the amount of different variants that are emerging. The new bivalent vaccine that is now available in Canada is meant to target the Omicron variant along with the original COVID-19 strain, said Bach. WILL THE BIVALENT VACCINE BE EFFECTIVE AGAINST THESE VARIANTS? What's happening in Europe is what Canadians should be watching for, said Bach. Reported infections have increased eight per cent from last week, and eleven countries in the region have reported cases that are 20 per cent or higher than the previous week, according to the organization.
Buses in bq update#
The WHO's latest epidemiological update also shows cases in Europe are rising. You give grounds to multiple more and more, they multiply so fast," he added.
"These viruses are multiplying at such a high amount because the physical protections are not in place. "We have a new variant that is escaping (the immune system) (and) the antibodies we have are not so good to prevent the infection," he said. Horacio Bach, a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of British Columbia, told CTVNews.ca via a phone interview that these subvariants have learned to change in order for their hosts' immune system not to recognize them, causing the host to be more vulnerable to infection. Less restrictions globally mean more cases, as millions of cases are still being recorded a day, and more cases means the virus has more opportunity to mutate, he explained. Reduced or abandoned public health measures have created a window of opportunity for the Omicron variant to develop more immune-evading subvariants, said Furness. "It's developing a capacity to be more immune-escaping," he said. "So whether it's those two or another two, what we’re really doing is we're training Omicron to fit to new circumstances…including a highly vaccinated population," said Furness. Omicron has been given every opportunity to mutate and to vary, and it's taking advantage of that," he said.įurness says the bigger issue is that there’s an "infinite number" of other variants developing. "We're creating a massive petri dish for biodiversity. "Globally, we've pulled back all protections and we've let it rip just about everywhere," said Colin Furness, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, told CTVNews.ca via a phone call. BA.5 continues to be the dominant strain, making up 80.8 per cent of sequences, but other subvariants are emerging, including those in the BA.2 family, which includes BA.2.75, the organization says.ĭespite the WHO's latest epidemiological update released Wednesday, which reported that COVID-19 cases globally have declined six per cent to 2.9 million infections, compared to last week, infectious disease experts in Canada are wary about what impact these new strains could have across the provinces, territories over the coming months. The Omicron variant and its subvariants account for 99.9 per cent of sequenced infections in the last 30 days, according to the World Health Organization.
BQ.1.1 is a subvariant of BA.5 and has also been identified in the U.K., where cases have ballooned in recent weeks, while BA.2.75, which the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control labelled as a variant “of interest” in September, is spreading quickly in India and Singapore. Two new subvariants of the Omicron strain of COVID-19 identified in recent months could fuel increased cases and hospitalizations in Canada through the fall and winter, infectious disease experts say.Įxperts say the variants, labelled BQ.1.1 and BA.2.75, are spreading rapidly in multiple countries.
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