New Delhi, Sept 20: Do you miserably feel exhausted due to severe and consistent sore throat, cough, fatigue, headache and body aches, congestion, runny nose, fever or chills in your body? Or, have you any bad symptoms like shortness of breath, nausea or loss of appetite, diarrhea and loss of sense of taste or smell, alike the common symptoms of Corona prevalently observed during the Corona Pandemic?
Be careful; Consult your family doctor soon to rule out Covid-19 infection. It’s because Covid-19 has reportedly retrieved in as many as 27 countries in the world, where people suffer from flu-like infections along with the aforesaid Covid-19 like symptoms. However, the Covid-19 in those nations, have reappeared with a recombinant variant XEC, says global Epidemiologists.
According to reports, the dominant signatures of the COVID-19 has raised high in the United States where as the new mutated variant called XEC is spreading rapidly in Europe and other parts of the world. Although few cases have been detected in the U.S. so far, some experts are projecting that XEC could be on track to become the dominant strain in the country this fall.
XEC is a recombinant of two previous variants, KP.3.3 (a FLiRT variant) and KS.1.1, Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease physician and professor at Yale School of Public Health, tells TODAY.com.
"When a person's infected with two different SARS-CoV-2 variants, you can get what we call a recombination, where pieces of the genetic material from one recombine with the other, and that can create a new strain," says Ko.
The XEC variant is a sublineage of omicron, just like the previous variants that have been circulating in recent months, said Dr. William Schaffner, Head, Professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to frontline media houses.
These include the FLiRT strains and the currently-dominant variant in the U.S., KP.3.1.1, which some scientists have dubbed “DeFLuQE.”
The SARS-CoV-2 Virus which causes COVID-19, is continuing to mutate, giving rise to new, highly contagious variants. The latest and the recombinant variant XEC, has sparked recent discourse among scientists on X.
Dr. Eric Topol, Physician Scientist and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said that the "XEC variant appears to be the most likely one to get legs next.
As respiratory virus season approaches in the US, some are concerned about whether XEC could cause a fall surge, and if the new COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out will protect against it.
According to Mike Honey, an Australian data scientist who has been tracking XEC’s spread, the variant first emerged in Berlin in late June and has since rapidly spread in Europe, North America and Asia, Honey wrote in a post on X on Sept. 14.
XEC is showing the "strongest growth" in Germany and Denmark, Honey added, and is spreading rapidly in a number of other places. XEC has been reported in at least 27 countries so far.
At this time, less than 100 cases of XEC have been detected in the U.S., says Ko. These have been reported in 12 states so far, according to the latest data from Scripps Research's COVID-19 database, Outbreak.info.
"It's definitely here but it hasn’t made it to the CDC tracker because not enough cases have been detected," says Ko. XEC is not yet listed on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "Nowcast" estimates, which project COVID variant proportions in the U.S. for the most recent two-week period.
However, this is expected to change. According to Honey, XEC "looks a likely next challenger against the now-dominant DeFLuQE variants," he wrote in a post on X on Sept. 14.
"(XEC) appears to be, like many of the other Omicron variants we have seen recently, quite contagious (and) very easily spread, which is why it's picking up steam," says Schaffner.
XEC, like other COVID variants, is spread from person to person through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person breathes, talks, coughs, or sneezes.
"It is rising at a fast rate right now (and) it's the fastest rising variant in a couple different countries in Europe," says Andrew Pekosz, Professor and vice chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells Europian media houses.
“Any time a new variant emerges and starts to increase rapidly, we always turn our eyes toward it. That is really is the first signal that something might be happening,” says Pekosz.
The XEC variant has at least one mutation in its spike protein, says Pekosz. While this may potentially make it more transmissible, it's unclear whether XEC will out-compete other variants.
"It looks to be behaving the way many of these other omicron subvariants have behaved. So far, no alarm bells have gone off regarding XEC," says Schaffner.
"The 2024 summer wave was more prominent and has been more prolonged than we anticipated. It’s only now starting to wane," says Schaffner.
There is no COVID "season" in the US and activity can continue throughout the year. Cases tends to peak in the winter months during respiratory virus season, the experts note, but can also surge in the spring and summer, per the CDC.
The timing and severity of COVID-19 surges is difficult to predict, says Pekosz, but he speculates that there's a chance this winter wave may come later or not be as big as last year's due to the size of the summer wave, which provided some people immunity. However, it's unclear how the next few months will pan out.
"XEC may be the next one that's going to take off and cause a wave, but we're not sure how big that wave may be," said a research physician studying on Covid-19 variants.
However, the WHO or the health organizations of some nations including India, have not yet raised any concern in view of the suring Variant XEC of the COVID-19.
