Health authorities also do detailed computer modeling that can predict when variants might evade current tests. McKinney said the FDA is continuing to study the performance of current COVID-19 tests, including through an ongoing relationship with a National Institutes of Health program that manually rechecks tests against new samples of the virus. "Based upon available information at this time, the FDA believes that most existing tests used to detect COVID-19 appear to be effective with this variant," FDA spokesperson James McKinney said in an Aug. Do COVID tests pick up the new COVID variant BA.2.86?Ĭurrent COVID-19 tests are expected to still work for BA.2.86, early analyses suggest. 17, from a sample collected in late July from the Ohio city of Elyria. Marc Johnson, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Missouri, said on social media the Ohio detection was based on results published from the CDC's sewer testing program. Scientists in several other countries have also announced spotting at least preliminary signs of the strain in their sewers, according to Sorin Sion of the EU Sewage Sentinel System for SARS-CoV-2, including Denmark, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand. No other states have reported BA.2.86 in their wastewater so far, a CDC spokesperson said Aug. Ohio had previously confirmed it was also investigating with the CDC a "preliminary detection" of BA.2.86's distinctive mutations in its sewers. New York became the fourth to report the variant, after spotting BA.2.86's distinctive mutations in New York City's wastewater. Records reported to GISAID show the sequence was from a sample collected by the Cleveland Clinic on July 29, from a 26-year-old patient in Ohio's Cuyahoga County. case of BA.2.86 has been confirmed in Ohio, a spokesperson for the state's health department told CBS News. Contractors for CDC's airport testing program had detected the case, in a woman who had traveled from Japan to the Washington, D.C. 10 at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. case of BA.2.86 was reported to GISAID from a sample collected on Aug. A spokesperson for Michigan's health department said that sample was collected from an adult who lived in the state's Washtenaw County.Ī second U.S. 3, according to metadata reported to GISAID by a lab at the University of Michigan. case was reported from a sample collected on Aug. Experts have speculated that previous highly mutated variants arose in immunocompromised patients battling lingering infections. None of the early cases had a known "epidemiological link" with each other, an official for the U.N. No deaths have been reported, according to an Aug. 30, 10 are in Denmark, four are in Sweden, three are in the U.S., two are in South Africa, two are in Portugal, one is in Israel, one is in the United Kingdom and another is in Canada.Ī number of countries have also reported signs of the variant's spread using wastewater testing in areas that have yet to spot human cases, including in the U.S. 24 he expected to have some data on BA.2.86 by "early next week." Where has the new COVID variant BA.2.86 been detected?Īt least 24 confirmed infections have been reported to the global virus database GISAID or announced by health authorities. More could be known soon about the impacts of the strain, from experiments done by scientists testing the strain's mutations against antibodies for the virus.Īmong them is Peking University Professor Yunglong Cao, whose rapid assessments of variant abilities to dodge antibodies have played a key role in helping global authorities judge the threats posed by past strains. How do coronavirus variants form | 60 Minutes Archive 01:35
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