EG.5 and BA.2.86 are currently being monitored
What are the changes we are seeing in the COVID symptoms?
As of now, no new change is being seen in the type and pattern of the COVID symptoms. However, health experts are urging people to take care of the common symptoms of COVID and test themselves and take necessary precautions at the earliest.
What are the symptoms of COVID one needs to be careful about?
Health experts have said that the pattern of COVID symptoms are in the same terms as the symptoms seen during the previous strains. So far, Eris “seems to be the same in terms of symptoms,” says Thomas Russo, M.D., a professor and the chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo in New York told The Prevention. The common symptoms one should be careful about are fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting and diarrhea. The symptoms are available on the website of the US CDC.
Upper respiratory tract infection is common these days
"Most people will have an upper respiratory tract infection, but some people will develop more serious disease, which will be a lower respiratory tract infection. Some people develop non-respiratory tract symptoms, like diarrhea," Dr Russo told The Prevention. He also warns against pink eye or conjunctivitis. Loss of taste and smell, which was seen during the earlier infection waves of the COVID, is less likely to be seen during the infection caused by Eris, the expert has said.
"The public health risk posed by EG.5 is evaluated as low at the global level"
In a recent statement, the WHO said that the EG.5 variant is being evaluated and the health risk posed by it is low. It had added the variant to the "variant under monitoring" list in July. EG.5 is a descendent lineage of XBB. 1.9.2. "EG.5 carries an additional F456L amino acid mutation in the spike protein compared to the parent XBB.1.9.2 subvariant and XBB.1.5. Within the EG.5 lineage, the subvariant EG.5.1 has an additional spike mutation Q52H and represents 88% of the available sequences for EG.5 and its descendent lineages," the WHO has said.
BA.2.86 has been added to the “variant under monitoring” list
BA.2.86, which was first identified in Denmark and Israel, has been added to WHO’s list of variants under monitoring. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for the COVID-19 response at the WHO, had tweeted about this variant. In her tweet, Kherkhove said that currently very less information is available on the variant, but the large number of mutations it has needs closer monitoring.
COVID : Symptoms of Eris variant appear a week before positive test, says report