Europe sees rise in another off-shoot of Delta Covid variant

London, Nov 3 (IANS) Another offshoot of the Delta Covid variant, called AY.4.3, is fast spreading in several countries of Europe, according to media reports.

The new sub-strain has already been spotted 8,138 times in England, Daily Mail reported.

It makes up around one in 24 cases in the country after first being detected in mid-July and has grown consistently ever since.

According to Bulgaria's National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (NCIPD), AY.4.3 was detected in 16 of the 447 samples sequenced between September 15 and October 13, local media reports said.

AY. 4.3 was also found circulating Tromso city in Norway, local media reports quoted Mayor Gunnar Wilhelmsen as saying.

AY.4.3 carries the unique mutation N:Q9L which scientists say is 'unusual', but they are yet to find evidence that this makes it more transmissible or better able to evade vaccines, Daily Mail report said.

It was first spotted in July in the UK after Delta had spread around the world, and since then 84,000 cases have been spotted in 108 countries. It is most common in Europe and has made up around half of cases in France alone since September, but did not trigger a spike in infections with cases in the country only starting to rise at the end of last month.

In Belgium, it makes up 40 per cent of infections, while in Germany, it makes up 30 per cent and in Denmark, just 15 per cent.

The subvariant has also been spotted in the US, where it is behind less than three per cent of cases. The country has recorded some 7,000 infections, the report said.

However, the strain raises concern as it comes after the rapid uptick in cases of AY.4.2 -- another descendant of the original Delta strain.

More than 26,000 cases of the Delta Covid subvariant AY.4.2, considered up to 15 per cent more transmissible than the original Delta, has been reported from 42 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"AY.43 is not as widespread as AY.4.2 yet, and is enriched in a somewhat odd set of patches just outside Greater London. This lineage is much more common outside the UK, so these could be a variety of introductions from abroad that have coincidentally grown a bit," Dr Jeffrey Barrett, who heads up Covid surveillance at the Sanger Institute, said in a tweet.

"It has been growing in Denmark, France, Belgium and Germany, which could be a biological advantage, or just the fact that those countries are just being hit with Delta case growth, and that's what's there?

"(It) doesn't have any spike mutations beyond Delta, and just N:Q9L that looks at all unusual," Barrett said.

Citing that there is, so far, no evidence that the strain is more transmissible or better able to evade vaccines, the experts also said there was 'no need' to be concerned, but must "keep an eye on it".