Since the Ômicron variant of the coronavirus emerged in the second half of 2021, hundreds of sublines have developed from it. Identified with acronyms full of letters and numbers, the names confuse anyone who does not belong to the scientific community.
For example, versions BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, BQ.1.1, BQ.1 and, more recently, XBB.1.5 by Ômicron have already passed through Brazil. But after all, why are underscores named like that?
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THE World Health Organization (WHO) established, in May 2021, that the variants of interest and concern of Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, must be named with letters of the Greek alphabet. The strains that changed the course of the pandemic were identified as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron.
The names are used to facilitate communication between the scientific community and the population and to avoid stigmas that could relate the variants to animals or the localities where they were found for the first time.
“While they have their advantages, scientific names can be difficult to say and remember and are prone to errors in reports. As a result, people often name the variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory”, explains the WHO, in the document that contains the guidelines for the classification of variants.
Impacts on the pandemic
The WHO understands that virus variants deserve to be indicated by a Greek letter only when their alterations have a significant impact on public health, to the point of requiring a change in response in the fight against the disease.
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Faced with the pandemic scenario and the expansion of the booster dose, some people are still wondering about the importance of the third dose of the vaccine against Covid-19
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*** Vaccination of children against Covid-19
The booster dose must be administered at least four months after the individual completes the initial vaccination schedule. The extra application serves to increase the amount of memory cells and further strengthen the antibodies they produce.
Rafaela Felicciano/Metropolises
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***Influenza flu vaccination
Experts point out that one of the main measures provided by the booster dose is the expansion of the immune response. The third dose causes an increase in the amount of antibodies circulating in the body, which reduces the chance of the immunized person getting sick.
Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil
***DF starts immunizing 12-year-olds and reinforces the vaccine for 80-year-olds
For the elderly and immunosuppressed, the booster dose increases the effectiveness of immunization, since these groups do not develop an adequate immune response
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***adult vaccine
Another important measure is to reduce the chance of infection in case of new variants. The antibody promoted by the vaccine is directed to the strain that gave rise to the formula and, in this process, people also produce antibodies that have diversity. The greater the reach of the proteins that defend the organism, the greater the probability that some will bind to the new variant
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*** Vaccine against covid _ Coronavac _ butantan
The director of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIM) and member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the National Immunization Program of the Ministry of Health, Renato Kfouri says that the mixture of vaccines from different laboratories is a
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***covid vaccine Increase in the number of covid-19 and Influenza cases in Brazil 6
A study conducted by the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom showed that people who received two doses of AstraZeneca had a 30-fold increase in antibody levels after a Moderna booster, and a 25-fold increase with a booster. pfizer
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***Ticuna village _ indigenous people are vaccinated against covid-19 in the Amazon
Reactions to the booster dose are similar to the previous two doses. Mild to moderate symptoms such as excessive tiredness and pain at the injection site are expected. However, there are also reports of symptoms that include local redness or swelling, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever or nausea.
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***With low demand, vaccination against H1N1 in Goiânia focuses on i
It is worth noting that the use of three doses has the main objective of reducing the number of severe cases and the number of hospitalizations due to Covid-19.
Vinícius Schmidt/Metrópoles
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Because they share the same characteristics, such as replication in the upper respiratory tract and the ability to escape the immunity conferred by vaccines, the Omicron subvariants did not require changes in the public health response and, therefore, continue to be classified as versions of the predominant strain.
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Researcher from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) Paola Resende recalls that more than 2,500 strains of the Sars-CoV-2 virus have already been described since the beginning of the pandemic. However, few have had evolutionary success and many have even stopped circulating.
Paola is a researcher at the Laboratory of Respiratory Viruses and Measles at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC/Fiocruz) and one of the curators of the GISAID platform, the main genetic database of the coronavirus.
“The pattern is for one lineage to replace another over time. Among these lineages, some of them stand out epidemiologically, due to the number of cases or because they have important mutations throughout the genome”, he explained, in an interview with Agência Fiocruz de Notícias.
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The post Covid: why are underscores not named with the Greek alphabet? first appeared on Metropolis.
