A professor has spoken out about the BA.5 Covid-19 variant and the new symptoms being identified. Luke O'Neill, who is on the Covid-19 Advisory Group, is calling for the public to better understand the symptoms on the newly identified strain.
The BA.5 variant has been identified as health officials are pleading with the public to isolate at the first sign of infection, the Mirror reports. The Irish professor said: "Most cases in Ireland at the moment would be BA.5, for instance, same in the US. It's another curveball that has been thrown at us by this virus, and BA.5 is the dominant variant that's out there at the moment.”
When speaking about the summer wave, he said it is now believed that there are some key differences in the symptoms being reported - and people need to be aware of them.
He said: "One extra symptom for BA.5 I saw this morning is night sweats.
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"The disease is slightly different because the virus has changed. There is some immunity to it, with the T cells and so on, and that mix of your immune system and the virus being slightly different might give rise to a slightly different disease - with strangely enough - night sweats being a feature.”
The Trinity College Professor told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny that the strain - which has been linked to Omicron - has been reeking havoc around the world.
Whilst the summer wave is rampant, Irish officials still need to implement new restrictions as the rate of vaccination is high and side effects less severe, Irish Mirror reports.
While the available vaccines are still considered our best protection against the virus right now, Professor O’Neill says he believes new ones will be developed ahead of the expected winter surge.
"Both Pfizer and Moderna have said they'll have an Omicron vaccine by September, and they'll have a BA.4/5 by October,” he explained.
"So when we get to that point, it would make sense to start using those newer ones. But... the current one is still giving good protection anyway.
"Like the flu, you'll change the vaccine based on the variant that's around at the time.”
It comes as UK Covid cases are set to reach record levels next week, and could double by the autumn, according to a study.
Rises in Covid have been driven by Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
It is believed that they are much better at evading immunity built up by previous infection and vaccinations than prior omicron strains, causing the explosion in reinfections.
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