Presented by some experts as the next dominant variant of Covid-19, will XEC be at the origin of a new wave in the coming months?
XEC was first identified in Germany in June 2024. According to Eric Topol, director of the Scripps research translational institute in California (United States), a biomedical research center, this new variant of Covid-19 is “a hybrid of the KS.1.1 and KP.3 variants.3″, old sub-variants of BA.2. 86, itself descended from Omicron.
XEC has gained a lot of ground since the beginning of the summer and could soon become the new dominant sub-variant in place of KP.3.1.1, the last hyper-infectious variant, currently dominant in Europe and the United States. According to Mike Honey, a data scientist specializing in Covid, XEC has increased in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. According to the specialist, it is currently found in 27 countries on three continents.
Contacted by Destination Santé, the ECDC, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, emphasizes that to date, a very limited number of XEC detections have been reported in Europe. And no data currently allows for a direct assessment of immune evasion, transmissibility, severity or vaccine efficacy against severe forms of Covid-19 compared to other lineages descended from BA.2.86.
Based on the data currently available, including its mutations, the European Health Authority estimates that XEC should present similar characteristics to its cousins currently in circulation; neither more nor less serious, and with an equivalent level of vaccine efficacy.
ECDC believes that it is currently too early to know whether XEC will continue to increase. And, at this stage, there is no evidence that XEC is influencing the prevalence of COVID-19 in countries where it has been reported.
Several months before the next wave?
For his part, Dr Eric Topol estimated to Euronews that “XEC is just getting started worldwide”. “It’s going to take several weeks, a few months before it really settles in and starts to cause a wave,” he continues. “XEC is definitely taking things in hand. (…) But it will take months before reaching high levels.”
The fact that vaccines have been updated for recent variants could help XEC, descended from older sub-variants, become dominant. Thus, according to Professor François Balloux, director of the Institute of Genetics of theUniversity College Londonquestioned by the BBC, XEC would have “a slight transmission advantage”compared to other variants. But vaccines should still remain effective.
As a reminder, the different variants and sub-variants of Sars-Cov-2 are classified by group: VOC for variant of concern, VOI for variant to follow and VUM for “variant under surveillance”. XEC does not currently fall into any of these categories. However, ECDC assures that the situation remains under surveillance in any case.
Vaccination remains the best protection. “Even in the absence of new variants, a reduction in the protection conferred by vaccination or by a previous infection as well as sustained circulation of the virus could lead to a resurgence of severe forms, particularly in vulnerable people. Measures to prevent respiratory viruses therefore remain relevant, in particular the vaccination strategy in view of the evolution of the circulation of variants”, underlines Public Health France.
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