Dr Manal Mohammed, Senior Lecturer in Medical Microbiology, has written an article for The Conversation, titled COVID: What We Know About New Omicron Variant BF.7.
According to reports from China, the BF.7 variant has the strongest infection ability out of the Omicron subvariants in the country. It is quicker to transmit, has a shorter incubation period, and a greater capacity to infect people who have previously had a COVID infection or been vaccinated. It currently doesn’t appear to be spreading widely elsewhere across the globe.
Dr Mohammed explains that a person infected with BF.7 will transmit the infection to an average of 10 to 18.6 other people, compared to Omicron’s average 5.08 reproduction rate. The symptoms are similar to other Omicron subvariants, including a fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose and fatigue, with a minority of people also experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms like vomiting and diarrhoea.
BF.7 carries the R346T mutation, in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, a protein on the surface of the virus attaching to and infecting cells. This mutation has been linked with enhancing the capacity of the virus to escape protection generated by vaccines or previous infection.
At the end of the piece, Dr Mohammed suggests: “The emergence of BF.7 and other new variants is concerning. But vaccination is still the best weapon we have to fight COVID. And the recent approval by the UK drugs regulator of bivalent boosters, which target Omicron alongside the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, is very promising.”
Read the full article at The Conversation’s website in English or in Indonesian.
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