The new subvariant of Omicron XBB.1.5, has been detected in Mexico, which has caused an alert in the United States with 75 percent of the cases in that country.
Specifically, there are three positives reported in Mexican territory, two in the State of Mexico and one in Mexico City.
The database of GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data), which tracks variants of the coronavirus, reported that this lineage “emerged in the United States. It was detected for the first time in New York and Connecticut at the end of October” and what is worrying is that it adheres better to cells, therefore it is highly transmissible and spreads rapidly.
The three positive cases with XBB.1.5 in Mexico were sequenced by the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (Inmegen): The first is from a 41-year-old woman, from the State of Mexico, who took the covid-19 PCR test on December 19, 2022 and whose positive results came out on January 7, 2023.
Also on January 7, 2023, Inmegen uploaded to the GISAID platform the case of another 38-year-old woman, the same from the State of Mexico, who took the test on December 20, 2022 in the Salud Digna laboratories. .
And a 27-year-old girl, who lives in Mexico City, was tested at Inmegen and this same laboratory confirmed, as happened with the 38-year-old, that it was the XBB.1.5 lineage. The data was uploaded on January 7, 2023.
The World Health Organization (WHO) assured that XBB.1.5, the new variant of Omicron, has already spread to more than 70 countries and is considered “highly contagious”, with the great particularity that “it does not come from China, but from the United States, becoming, in these moments, the dominant one in the whole world”.
Currently, in the GISAID platform there are 5 thousand 496 reported cases with XBB.1.5. The first reported case was found, on October 22, 2022, in a 46-year-old man from New York and then on October 26, 2022, in a 35-year-old woman from Connecticut, United States.
Los CDC They warned that “the levels of immune evasion are alarming and could further compromise the efficacy of vaccines.”
Omicron has exceeded the number of mutations registered in its genome since the virus appeared in Wuhan, Chinaand which have become increasingly resistant and evasive both to biological immunization and to that obtained by infection contracted by direct contact with a patient.
The health authorities detailed that the symptoms presented by the new XBB.1.5 variant are similar, fever, cold, congestion, headache and body ache.
The virologists of the Universidad Johns Hopkins They advanced that the vaccines that appeared in the early stages are not designed against the omicron variant and that, so far, the most effective is the bivalent booster, the one that contains Pfizer and Moderna.
How long does the virus last on surfaces?
The Ministry of Health published a study on “Survival of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment” to determine how long the virus can remain and be capable of causing an infection.
“The following surfaces have been tested and there was no viable virus after the stated time.”
- -Printing paper and tissue paper: 3 hours
- Copper: 4 hours
- Carton: 24 hours
- Fabric: 2 days
- Wood: 2 days
- Paper money: 4 days
- Glass: 4 days
- Plastic: 3 to 7 days
- Stainless steel: 2 to 7 days
- Surgical masks: A small amount of viable virus was still present on the outside of the mask after 7 days.
“Importantly, these studies were conducted in laboratory settings. The surfaces were indoors and the virus was carefully collected from the surfaces. Environmental conditions, such as indoor ventilation or wind and sunlight, can reduce the amount of virus present on a surface and the length of time the virus can remain viable.”
cog