New COVID-19 variant XEC set to dominate globally within weeks
20 September 2024 06:51
At the end of June this year, a new variant of COVID-19, XEC, was first detected in Germany and India. Its appearance in other countries appears inevitable.
The detection in over 500 samples tested for the presence of XEC was reported on Wednesday by the British "Independent." The new subvariant has been detected among others in China, the US, and Europe.
As BBC News warns, in a few weeks this subvariant may become dominant.
A new viral scourge is brewing. The COVID-19 subvariant is already circulating in Europe
It has already been detected in Norway, Ukraine, and Germany. The new subvariant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is one of the variants of Omicron, which manifests in the form of subsequent subvariants. Currently, the most common of these in many countries is KP.3.1.1.
It is expected, however, that XEC will soon dominate. As announced on the platform X by Mike Honey from Melbourne, Australia, a COVID-19 data analyst, it is spreading quite quickly and looks like the potential next competitor to KP.3.1.1.
The director of the Scripps Research Translation Institute, Prof. Eric Topol, holds the same opinion. In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, he predicts that XEC will start to dominate in a few weeks, at the latest within a few months.
The symptoms of XEC are similar to those of previous variants. They can include fever, sore throat, cough, loss of smell, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and nausea. Notably, the vaccines currently introduced in the US and the European Union are not targeted at XEC. They were designed to protect against the previously dominant Omicron subvariants.
