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The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are tracking a newly identified, highly mutated strain of COVID experts warn could be the next big leap in viral evolution—if the variant takes off.
The WHO on Thursday announced that it had declared BA.2.86—formerly referred to as BA.X and dubbed “Pirola” by variant trackers, after an asteroid—a “variant under monitoring,” the lowest of three levels of alert. “High flying” variants EG.5, XBB.1.5, and XBB.1.6 have been designated as “variants of interest,” of greater concern. And only Omicron persists as a “variant of concern,” the highest level of alert.
WHO has designated #COVID19 variant BA.2.86 as a ‘variant under monitoring’ today due to the large number of mutations it carries.
So far, only a few sequences of the variant have been reported from a handful of countries.
???? https://t.co/3tJkDZdY1V— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) August 17, 2023
Later in the day, the CDC announced that it, too, was tracking the variant, and that it had been detected in the U.S.—in Michigan, in addition to Israel and Denmark, where it had first been reported.
CDC is tracking a new lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19. This lineage is named BA.2.86, and has been detected in the United States, Denmark and Israel. CDC is gathering more information and will share more about this lineage as we learn it.
— CDC (@CDCgov) August 18, 2023
And on Friday, the U.K.’s Health Security Agency that the variant had been identified in England, and that it was “assessing the situation.”
A case of the COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 has been identified in the UK & a number of other countries. Dr Meera Chand, Deputy Director, has said “We’re aware that BA.2.86 has been detected in the UK. UKHSA is assessing the situation & will provide further information in due course.”
— UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) August 18, 2023
Unlike most circulating variants, which have evolved from the Omicron spawn XBB, BA.2.86 is thought to have evolved from a much earlier strain of Omicron—BA.2, which circulated in early 2022, or perhaps from the original Omicron, BA.1.1.529, which spiked cases to record highs in late 2021 and early 2022.
And unlike most other variants running rampant, it appears to be wildly different from its predecessor. So far, most widely circulating variants feature a small handful of mutations that make them slightly different from the last—usually a bit more transmissible.
BA.2.86, on the other hand, features more than 30 mutations that separate it from early Omicron—mutations with the potential to make it vastly more immune-evasive, and potentially give it the ability to more easily infect cells, according to Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, Wash., and top variant tracker.
That makes BA.2.86 as different from other Omicron strains as the first Omicron was from the original strain of COVID found in Wuhan in 2019, Bloom asserts.
Because of this, “Pirola” has the potential to become the next variant the WHO awards a Greek letter to—likely Pi, hence the nickname.
“What sets this one apart from the many other Omicron subvariants is that it exhibits a large number of mutations … far more than we usually see,” Ryan Gregory, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told Fortune. He’s been assigning “street names” to high-flying variants since the WHO stopped assigning new Greek letters to them, with Omicron.
While only six sequences—and counting—of the variant had been identified in four countries (Denmark, England, the U.S., and Israel) as of late Friday, sequencing worldwide is at an all-time low.
Regarding BA.2.86, when @SolidEvidence uses the word “avalanche,” it’s not a good sign.
And here’s the 30+ Δ spike mutations (BA.2.86 vs XBB.1.5) from @RajlabN https://t.co/8UucaWlOaWhttps://t.co/m239bcQ2TB pic.twitter.com/f5f6at0iRO— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 18, 2023
“It’s fairly likely it’s going undetected in some other countries,” Gregory said.
Can BA.2.86 out-compete leading variants?
Two main questions remain: What the implications will be of the variant’s burgeoning mutations on disease presentation, and if it will grow legs.
The geographical spread of the handful of cases and their significant similarities suggest that growth could be rapid, Ryan Hisner, a top variant tracker who discovered the Denmark cases, tweeted Thursday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
