COVID-19 Subvariant XBB has the peculiarity of quickly spreading but mild symptoms

ILLUSTRATION ANTARA

JAKARTA - Consultant clinical microbiology specialist Angky Budianti said the XBB subvariant, which is a derivative of Omicron SARS-CoV-2 or B.1.1.529, has a peculiarity in the speed of spread, but the majority of symptoms reported are mild.

"Indeed, this Omicron includes XBB, it is more typical in the speed of spread and there is a possibility of immune escape, although this immune escape is still in the process of being monitored by WHO. However, the majority of the clinical trials are milder,” said the doctor from Dr. RSUPN. Cipto Mangunkusumo as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, November 1.

He explained that mutations in viruses are actually a normal thing to survive and adapt to the environment in which the virus lives.

In Omicron, this variant has 32 point mutations, most of which are in the gene encoding the spike protein. Thus, the Omicron variant, including the XBB sub-variant, has the peculiarity of a fairly fast spread compared to the previous variant.

The majority of clinical symptoms shown by patients infected with XBB generally have mild symptoms, namely symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections such as cough, runny nose, fever, and sometimes painful swallowing or sore throat.

Angky said that the XBB sub-variant, which is still the same as the Omicron variant, did not have too significant a difference. This is different when compared to the Delta variant, which spreads quickly and has severe symptoms, so many patients are hospitalized and die.

"But, if it's a fellow Omicron variant, the difference is not as significant as this XBB," he said.

The XBB subvariant was first reported in India last August. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) as of October 27, 2022, the prevalence of XBB worldwide is around 1.3 percent and has been found in 35 countries.

Angky explained that the Omicron variant actually already has several subvariants or derivatives, namely BA.1, BA.2, to BA.5. Meanwhile, XBB is a recombinant of two BA.2 derivatives, namely BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75. In layman's language, Angky likens XBB to the "grandson" of Omicron.

Besides XBB, Angky also highlighted BQ.1 which is a derivative of BA.5. The BQ.1 subvariance has a fairly large prevalence of about 6 percent or more than XBB and has spread in 65 countries.

BQ.1 has the ability to evade the body's immune system (immune escape). However, until now there is still no data available regarding the severity of the disease and the ability of BQ.1 to hide from the body's immune system.

Meanwhile, the ability of BQ.1 to hide from vaccines (vaccine escape) is still in the research stage. However, vaccine protection against BQ.1 infection is likely to be reduced and protection against disease severity is not significant.

Angky said XBB and BQ.1 were still under WHO supervision. The things that are monitored, including how fast the rate of spread, the manifestation of the severity of the disease, the ability to hide from the vaccine to whether there are significant differences in characteristics when compared to the original Omicron variant.

"Hopefully this will not become a new variant of concern, but will still be a subvariant of Omicron," said Angky.