Australian scientists are closely monitoring a new COVID-19 variant which has become the most common strain of the virus in the United States. The variant is known as E-G-5 or "Eris" named for the Greek goddess of chaos and strife. It is believed to have been in Australia since April but experts say people who are vaccinated shouldn't be concerned.
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00:00 Reported cases of ERIS or EG5.1, we're looking, you know,
00:06 close to around about 100 that have been detected
00:10 in the community by whole genome sequencing.
00:14 There are a number of other variants, XBB1.5, XBB1.16,
00:20 and also the parent of EG5.1, XBB1.9, and other derivatives.
00:25 So it does represent a mix where it's approximately 2%
00:29 of that mix, so it's a very low numbers and it has been
00:32 very low numbers for some time.
00:34 We picked it up in collaboration with the whole
00:37 genomic sequencing teams that they're based at at WestMed
00:39 at ICPMR, and we actually looked at the phenotypic
00:43 characterisation of it very, very early on when it
00:45 entered Australia.
00:46 And what we observe, and it's kind of consistent with what's
00:49 being seen worldwide and also in the United States,
00:51 is that there is just an iterative change in the outside
00:55 of the virus called the spike, and that just gives it
00:57 a better ability and more of a competitive edge to transmit
01:02 in the presence of what we call neutralising antibodies,
01:04 that antibodies that block the virus that are produced
01:08 when you get vaccinated or vaccinated when you're infected.
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