BF.7 threat from China big, experts urge extra

PARAG BISWAS, SNS, SILIGURI, 22 DECEMBER 2022: After the Tawang clash between Indian and Chinese troops on December 9, India may see the Chinese People's Liberation Army as it s biggest threat, but the Omicron sub-variant BF.7, which is believed to be the strain driving China's current surge of Covid-19 cases, may turn out to be a much bigger threat for India in the coming months.

Though only three cases of the variant have been reported in our country so far, the Union Health Minister Mr Mansukh Mandasiya examined the Covid-19 situation in India on Wednesday and in the light of the new spike in cases not only in China but also in Japan, South Korea, Brazil, United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, France, Denmark and England urged all states and Union Territories to accelerate the whole genome sequencing of positive samples in order to track down more recent variants.

The first covid death was reported in BengaI after a gap of one month yesterday and the chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a high-level meeting with health officials last evening to take stock of the covid situation in the state and jack up the prepared-ness to fight with a fresh wave of the disease here.

The number of covid cases in the country has gone up from 132 to 185 in the last 24 hours and Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held a high-level meeting to review the Covid-19 situation in the country.According to experts in north Bengal, the BE7 sub-variant may pose the biggest challenge to the world in the coming months and both the masses and the authorities will have to be extra-vigilant to ensure that it does not spiral out of control.

Dr Ranadhir Chakraborty, a senior professor of the Department of Biotechnology, University of North Bengal told this correspondent today that the BE7 sub-variant, which was making people fall sick, overwhelming hospitals and piling up bodies in morgues in China, was an abbreviated form for BA.5.2.1.7.

"The BE7 sub-variant, which is being interestingly called the 'Omicron spawn,' is actually a sub-lineage of the BA.5 Omicron variant. There are a number °limitations similar to other lineages in the new strain, but the most significant of them is the mutation at the 346th. amino acid in the spike protein, in which Arginine has changed into Threonine. It is on the basis of this mutation that the sub-variant is being identified," he said.

The noted microbiologist said that the BE7 variant had more immune escape capability, a shorter incubation period, and a faster transmission rate and it was more infectious than the other variants of coronavirus known so far.

"There are over 500 sub-variants of the coronavirus currently circulating the world over and affecting people in different countries. But the BE7 sub-variant is more infectious than the other variants and the previous strains. The average Roof the Omicron variant, that is its basic reproductive number, is 5.08, which means a person infected with Omicron can infect five people. But the R0 of BF.7 is 10 to 18.6, which means a person infected with the variant can infect 10 to 18 people. Besides, according to empirical evidence as noted in the renowned US journal, "Cell Host and Microbe," the new variant is 4.4 times more 'neutralization resistant' as compared to the original Wuhan strain, which triggered the covid pandemic in January2020. This means that the antibodies in the human body will find it extremely difficult to neutralize the infection caused by BE7 and arrest its spread in the body The new variant also has more mutations in its spike protein than its base variant, which makes it even more infectious and dangerous, even to those who are fully vaccinated. We may see many asymptomatic carriers of the variant, who will silently spread the infection in the community and even vaccinated people may get infected with it as the variant can escape the immune response to the earlier versions, either from natural infection or through vaccination. We should be fully alert to battle the new variant but we need not panic as only three cases of the variant - two in Gujarat and one in Odisha - has been detected in our country since October this year and despite these three cases, there hasn't been an overall surge in Covid cases in the country so for," he pointed out.

A renowned surgeon of Siliguri, Dr Kaushik Bhattacharya, who agreed with Dr Chakraborty, felt that the high transmissibility of the BE 7 variant in China might be attributed to a low level of immunity in the Chinese population from the previous infection and possibly vaccination, and an abrupt shift from its Zero Covid policy.

"China being China, it has been mum on the Covid situation in the country. It did not say much while it pursued a ruthless zero-Covid policy. The management of the situation there was deplorable and vaccination was also not properly done. But the situation in India is different and we need not panic.

"Unlike 2019, when the novel coronavirus first upended our lives, there is this time no mystery virus behind the rise in infections. Also, unlike 2019, scientists don't need to race to understand how this virus transmit s or how best to combat it. However, just like 2019, ye don't have the full picture of what is actually going on in China. With Christmas and New Year round the corner, we should be very careful. As the NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul noted yesterday, barely 28 percent of our eligible population has taken the precaution dose of Covid-19. We should take the jab, wear masks, avoid gatherings and follow hand hygiene now," he suggested.