And the world is scared again by the power of the virus that invaded the planet at the end of 2019 and caused a pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 has another variant that has already been classified as “alarming” by the World Health Organization (WHO) and already has a name: Omicron. The new variant was announced to the world by the South African authorities on Thursday 25th, after it was first identified on November 9th.
As soon as they presented it, South African experts raised concerns about its transmissibility and resistance to vaccines, and 24 hours later, WHO did not hesitate to call it “alarming” based on preliminary data suggesting “increased risk of reinfection” compared to other existing options. such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Just yesterday, 27 EU member states also agreed to apply an emergency brake, resulting in the suspension of flights from seven South African countries to public space, namely Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Swatini, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The information, which was published during the Slovenian presidency via Twitter, said that member states, European institutions and experts “agreed on the need to activate the emergency braking mechanism and impose time limits on all travel to the EU from here. South Africa. “The communiqué also called on member countries to” screen and quarantine all passengers from these countries. “
According to the WHO, the first infection was detected in a person on November 9 in South Africa and is spreading “at an increasingly rapid rate” in that country and in other provinces in southern Africa. So far, the studies carried out for B.1.1.529 show that it is not the Delta sub-line, which is predominant in the world and which is characterized by a large mutational capacity. In other words, he has already produced “several mutations, and some of them are troubling,” he refers to information provided by the WHO, claiming that “the preliminary data collected indicate an increased risk of reinfection.”
Until yesterday, the Ricardo Jorge National Institute of Health (INSA) has not identified a single case of this new variant in the national territory, citing “to be be attentive to the situation by maintaining its ongoing national variation monitoring program. “In response to DN, INSA also explained that a new version of the B.1.1.529 line was recently discovered in South Africa, believing that – if this is the reason for the increase cases of infection registered in a given country.
The Portuguese Institute also confirmed that the strain of this variant was characterized by “an abnormally large number of mutations in the Spike protein, many of which had already been identified separately in other variants and which were believed to be associated with greater transmissibility. and / or an inability to bind antibodies “.
However, he stressed that “there is still no evidence to indicate that this new strain is more transmissible or that it could lead to problems in terms of vaccine efficacy. In fact, the simultaneous appearance of several corresponding mutations did not always have phenotypic consequences, given that they are often, the disappearance of these strains from the epidemiological panorama is observed shortly after their appearance. “
The WHO also confirmed in its announcement yesterday that there is still insufficient scientific evidence to demonstrate that the world is again faced with a variant with a higher degree of transmissibility than the Delta variant identified in India and still considered so. which have achieved a higher transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2.
Infectious disease specialist Margarida Tavares of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João in Porto, an infectious disease specialist, explained to DN that “although we do not know how transmitted this variant is, we cannot predict the impact it might have on the pandemic.” arguing that in these almost two years of the pandemic, there were already other mutations that were identified as very dangerous, but which later turned out to be different.
UK says most significant variant has been found so far after Delta
As for Omicron, there is no doubt that within 24 hours he forced the international authorities to meet urgently: WHO in Geneva, EU in Brussels. A warning has been issued, and as Jenny Harris of the United Kingdom’s Health Safety Agency also said yesterday, “This is the most significant variant we have found so far,” and there is a need for “urgent investigation to find out more about its transmissibility. the severity and susceptibility to the vaccine. “
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already said that it is too early to make predictions about the possible need to adapt existing vaccines to this option. As for laboratories, for example, Pfizer and BioNTech have already announced that they will receive results within two weeks at the latest on whether the vaccines will need to be adapted to the new variant.
Once again, SARS-CoV-2 is driving scientific research to find answers in record time. Recall that on Thursday, the WHO expert group responsible for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 met with South African experts to jointly analyze the latest available data on this option. One of the problems was precisely his ability to change.
Early in the morning, the head of the COVID-19 department at WHO, Maria Van Kerkhov, suggested that “little is known about this option.” “What we really know is that he has a very large number of mutations. And the concern is that when there are so many mutations, it could affect the behavior of the virus, ”he said.
At the beginning of yesterday, countries such as Germany, Japan, Austria, Italy and Singapore, as well as the United Kingdom, suspended flights from seven South African countries to their territory. And the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed deep concern: “We are very serious about the news of a new highly mutated version.”
The EU president even called on states to “force travelers returning from the region to comply with strict quarantine rules” and comply with personal protective measures.
Putin has repeatedly consulted with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the invasion, Europa Press told Ukraine’s chief intelligence director Vadim Skibitsky.
According to Skibitsky, it was the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counterintelligence and espionage work, that put pressure on Gerasimov and other military agencies to agree to launch an offensive. .
However, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services, the FSB considered that by the end of February sufficient preparations had already been made to guarantee the success of the Russian Armed Forces in a lightning invasion.
However, according to Kyiv, the Russian General Staff provided the Russian troops with supplies and ammunition for only three days, hoping that the offensive would be swift and immediately successful.
The head of Ukrainian intelligence also emphasized the cooperation of local residents, who always provided the Ukrainian authorities with up-to-date information about the Russian army, such as the number of soldiers or the exact location of troops.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison for spying for Russia, and his brother to at least 12 years in prison. In what is considered one of the most serious cases in Swedish counterintelligence history, much of the trial took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.
According to the prosecution, it was Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who took advantage of the information provided by the two brothers between 2011 and their arrest at the end of 2021.
Peyman Kia, 42, has held many senior positions in the Swedish security apparatus, including the army and his country’s intelligence services (Säpo). His younger brother, Payam, 35, is accused of “participating in the planning” of the plot and of “managing contacts with Russia and the GRU, including passing on information and receiving financial rewards.”
Both men deny the charges, and their lawyers have demanded an acquittal on charges of “aggravated espionage,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.
The trial coincides with another case of alleged Russian espionage, with the arrest of the Russian-born couple in late November in a suburb of Stockholm by a police team arriving at dawn in a Blackhawk helicopter.
Research website Bellingcat identified them as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Kulkova. The couple allegedly acted as sleeper agents for Moscow, having moved to Sweden in the late 1990s.
According to Swedish press reports, the couple ran companies specializing in the import and export of electronic components and industrial technology.
The man was again detained at the end of November for “illegal intelligence activities.” His partner, suspected of being an accomplice, has been released but remains under investigation.
According to Swedish authorities, the arrests are not related to the trial of the Kia brothers.
“They can strengthen their positions. We understand that this can happen. At the same time, we do not rule out that they will announce a general mobilization,” Danilov said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.
Danilov believed that this mobilization would also be convened “to exterminate as many as possible” of Russian citizens, so that “they would no longer have any problems on their territory.”
In this sense, Danilov also reminded that Russia has not given up on securing control over Kyiv or the idea of the complete “destruction” of Ukraine. “We have to be ready for anything,” he said.
“I want everyone to understand that [os russos] they have not given up on the idea of destroying our nation. If they don’t have Kyiv in their hands, they won’t have anything in their hands, we must understand this,” continued Danilov, who also did not rule out that a new Russian offensive would come from “Belarus and other territories.” .
As such, Danilov praised the decision of many of its residents who chose to stay in the Ukrainian capital when the war broke out in order to defend the city.
“They expected that there would be panic, that people would run, that there would be nothing to protect Kyiv,” he added, referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
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