The new XBB.1.5 variant of the coronavirus could be resistant to AstraZeneca's antiviral, according to the US

MADRID, 7 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported this Friday that the XBB.1.5 variant of the coronavirus is likely to be resistant to the drug 'Evusheld' against COVID-19 from the British laboratory AstraZeneca.

According to the FDA, the UK pharmaceutical company's antiviral may not provide protection against the development of COVID-19 for those individuals who receive it and are later exposed to the new variant.

Evusheld was the last antibody of its class that was still authorized in the United States to prevent infections in high-risk people, since the rest of the drugs had been ruled out due to the high probability that they did not protect against new variants.

Antibody therapies have been essential to treat and prevent disease in some seven million immunocompromised Americans for whom vaccines and antivirals may be less effective, Bloomberg reported.

However, as the COVID-19 virus has mutated, it has removed antibodies from the market one by one.

Currently, XBB.1.5 --which comes from Ómicron--, represents 28 percent of the total variants circulating in the United States, according to FDA data.

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has detailed that the international health organization is evaluating the rapid increase of the XBB.1.5 variant, both in the United States and in 24 other countries.

Tedros has been "really concerned" about the current epidemiological landscape of COVID-19, "both because of the intense transmission in various parts of the world and because of a recombinant subvariant that spreads rapidly."

In this regard, he has assured that the WHO "is closely monitoring and evaluating the risk of this subvariant and will report accordingly" on the new data obtained.