The BF.7 sub-variant of omicron is making the news again with rising cases in China. Here is all about it.
What is the BF.7 subvariant?
BF.7 is a sub-variant of the BA.5 Omicron variant. Despite its short incubation period, it has the strongest infection ability. Additionally, it can also cause reinfection or infect vaccinated individuals. As per a study published in Cell Host and Microbe, the sub-variant has 4.4 times higher neutralization resistance when compared to the original variant. This means that antibodies from infected or vaccinated people are less likely to destroy it when compared with data from the original SARS-CoV-2.
Moreover, the BF.7 accounts for over 5 percent of cases in the US and 7.26 percent in the UK as of October. Researchers are watching the numbers carefully but, there is no dramatic rise in hospitalization from the variant in particular. Additionally, India saw merely 2.5 percent cases of the sub-lineage in November.
Covid surge: Why the COVID-19 cases rising in China
Experts believe the immune evasive and transmissibility of the BF.7 is not the reason behind the rising cases in China. However, the immune naive population of China is driving the numbers. “China is now experiencing the typical Omicron surge that other countries have already witnessed, and just like the one Hong Kong saw when it relaxed its restrictions,” stated Dr. (https://mundonow.com) Anurag Agarwal. Dr. Agarwal is the former head of the COVID-19 genome sequencing consortium of India. After all, there are other variants more severe than this.
“For us, the Omicron wave looked milder because the population was protected with previous infection and vaccination. Plus, we have already paid the price, so to say, during the Delta wave (of April-May 2021). People died but those who survived had better immunity. Other than that, Omicron has mainly been killing its elderly victims and we (India) do have a younger population,” he added.
While China’s population is vaccinated, its vaccines were developed to fight the original variant. Since then, the virus has mutated a lot and is cable of evading the previous mechanism. “The mutations in the spike protein have slowed down, there hasn’t been a massive change in around a year. This is why we haven’t seen any new variants emerge, just sub-lineages. If you see, the distance between the spike protein in the original D614G variant and Delta, or even between Delta and Omicron, was much more than what we are seeing now,” explained Dr. Ekta Gupta. Dr. Gupta is a professor of Virology at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences.