A new Covid-19 lineage is being monitored by global health officials due to its large number of mutations that could make it tougher to prevent and treat.
Not much is known about BA.2.86, which was first spotted by virus trackers earlier this week. Only a handful of cases have been reported in the U.S., Denmark and Israel, but its mutations caught the attention of the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Covid has continued to mutate since its emergence on the global stage more than three years ago. Earlier this month, the WHO warned of another variant - dubbed “Eris” - spreading quickly around the world. Moderna and Pfizer both said Thursday their updated Covid shots protected against Eris in early studies.
BA.2.86′s mutations give it “all the hallmark features of something that could take off,” Kristian Andersen, a Scripps Research immunologist and microbiologist, posted on Twitter, the social-media platform Elon Musk is renaming X.
BA.2.86 appears to descend from the BA.2 variant that emerged in early 2022, but the new lineage has more than 30 mutations on its spike protein, according to Ryan Hisner, an independent researcher who has closely tracked Covid’s evolution. The spike protein helps the virus latch onto cells and is the target of the vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer.