From Kraken to Pirola: who comes up with the nicknames for COVID-19 variants?
Professor Ryan Gregory is part of the team of COVID-19 sleuths who propose unofficial nicknames for Omicron variant
According to the official naming system devised by the WHO, the Omicron variant is still the dominant form of COVID-19 worldwide. However, with new subvariants now springing up on a regular basis – the most recent of which is causing cases to spike worldwide – a group of scientists have taken up the mantle of giving us an unofficial way of describing these new lineages. VaccinesWork spoke to Professor Ryan Gregory, who works with this team of professionals and skilled amateurs.
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The Pango system is quite ingenious; it gives a lot of information and the folks who developed it had the foresight to create this ancestor descendent indication – which is why you get this letter-dot-whatever-dot-whatever format, e.g. BA.2.86, which tells you about the variant's ancestry. So, that's very useful, but it makes things significantly more challenging when there is so much evolution, and so many variants.
The WHO named everything they've named within 180 days: the last one was Omicron in November 2021. Omicron is now this massive group of very divergent lineages – there are about 1,700 Pango lineages – and yet they're all still called Omicron.
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Why do you think there's a need for nicknames?
The analogy I've used is with common names in in zoology or botany. Omicron is like the high-level taxonomic class, and Pango lineages are like the Latin species names. For example, if you said, "What's making that noise in the woods over there?" and I said, "Mammal," you might ask me for more information, to which I might say, "It's Mus musculus." That wouldn't be helpful to most non-biologists, but if I used the common name – "mouse" – it would.
We use common names to talk about the handful of animals and plants that are most important to us. There are millions of formal Latin species names and these are useful in technical discussions, but every culture has a set of common names to easily communicate about a subset of things that are important. That's what's missing in the conversation about COVID-19 variants now.
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There's a new COVID-19 variant on the block that's generating alarming
newspaper headlines around the world. So far, the BA.2.86 variant –
nicknamed "Pirola" after a large asteroid that hangs out near Jupiter –
has been detected in 11 countries.
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Omicron has spawned yet another sub-variant that appears to be more infectious and capable of evading existing immunity than many of those that have come before it. Globally, the EG.5 variant – nicknamed “Eris” after the Greek goddess of strife and discord – is steadily growing in prevalence, but there’s currently no sign that it causes more severe disease. Here’s what we know so far..
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Will COVID-19 boosters protect against new variants such as “Pirola” and “Eris”?
The emergence of new Omicron subvariants has prompted fears about a fresh wave of infections, but existing COVID-19 booster vaccines are expected to provide reasonable protection against severe disease.
- 29 September 2023
- 3 min read
- by Linda Geddes
With the arrival of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, many countries are beginning to offer a new round of booster COVID-19 vaccinations to those at the most significant risk of severe illness. The current boosters were designed with the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants in mind, and while some regulatory authorities have now approved a booster vaccine against XBB.1.5, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has continued to evolve, and this is no longer the dominant strain.
So, how will these existing boosters hold up against the latest subvariants, and is it worth getting vaccinated now or waiting for updated boosters to become available?
All current COVID-19 cases are caused by different versions of Omicron,
which first emerged in late 2021. As of 10 September 2023, the EG.5 "Eris" subvariant accounted for 33.6% of virus sequences
analysed worldwide – making it the most prevalent subvariant – and it
had been reported by 73 countries. XBB.1.5 – sometimes referred to as
the "Kraken" variant – now accounts for 8.6% of cases, and BA.4 and BA.5
have largely disappeared from circulation. Concerns have also been
raised about the BA.2.86 "Pirola" subvariant because of the high number of mutations it contains, which could theoretically enhance its ability to evade the immune system.
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/kraken-pirola-who-comes-nicknames-covid-19-variant
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