A new variant of the SarsCov2 virus has been isolated and sequenced for the first time in Italy: it is the Xf, a sort of fusion between the dangerous Delta and the highly contagious Omicron.

The discovery was made at the Pievesestina laboratory in Cesena, directed by the microbiologist Vittorio Sandri.

The positive swab on which the virus mutation was sequenced is that of a patient with important pathologies, who contracted Covid a couple of months ago and then died.

"But not because of the Xf variant, this must be said clearly", Sandri specified.

The mutation is already quite widespread in England, where about a hundred cases have been found.

It is too early to evaluate its characteristics: in the laboratory we are studying to understand similarities and differences with the variants already known, the danger, the contagiousness, the resistance to vaccines and other therapies.

On the other hand, explains Sandri, the birth of variants is a "normal" thing, because "the number of cases is high, the virus turns and multiplies, the problem is to understand which and how many variants emerge and what it can mean".

(Unioneonline / L)

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