At the same time, Germany once again suffered from the African swine fever epidemic. According to the latest statement issued by the German Ministry of Agriculture, African swine fever has been detected in farms in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany and Brandenburg in east Germany. Among them, Lower Saxony is the largest pig farm in Germany, with about 6.4 million pigs and piglets.
As the locomotive of European economy, Germany has sounded the alarm of economic recession. On July 4, local time, the data released by the German Federal Statistical Office showed that Germany's trade deficit in May reached 654.38+0 billion euros, the first time since 654.38+09965.438+0, far exceeding economists' expectations. On July 5th, German Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Chabeck said that the fear of German economic recession was overwhelming. In addition, many research institutions predict that Germany and other countries in the euro zone are likely to fall into recession this year.
There are new varieties in COVID-19.
Recently, a new variant of Omicron virus strain BA.2.75 has attracted great attention from the global health community.
At present, the research results show that this new strain in COVID-19 evolved from Omicron strain BA.2, which is called "the second generation strain", and related infection cases have appeared in Indian, Japanese, American, New Zealand and other countries.
According to infectious disease experts, the so-called "second-generation variant" refers to the variant that evolved from the "first-generation variant", but there are many mutations, which are very different from the first-generation variant. For Omicron, BA. 1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4 and BA.5 all belong to the "first generation variety", and BA.2.75 may become the first successful "second generation variety".
With the attention of experts in infectious diseases and health fields all over the world, more and more new strains of Omicron strain BA.2.75 have been discovered.
Among them, Dr. Shea Fresson, an expert from the Central Virus Laboratory of the Israeli Ministry of Health, warned that the appearance of BA.2.75 was "worrying", which was a "second generation variant" evolved from BA.2. Compared with BA.2, there were 16 new mutations, of which 8 were located in the spike protein gene region.
Bloom Laboratories in the United States said on the social media platform that compared with BA.2, this variant has two key mutations, G446S and R493Q, among which G446S will lead to the change of antigen characteristics and help the virus break through the immune barrier constructed by existing vaccines, while R493Q will improve the ability of the virus to enter human cells, so BA.2.75 is worth further tracking.
McHorney, an Australian data processing expert, thinks that BA.2.75 spreads very fast. During the period from June to June 30 of 15, the proportion of this variety in the genome samples uploaded by India rose rapidly from less than 5% to 18%, indicating that it is replacing other varieties and seems to spread faster than BA.2 and ba.5. ..
At present, the pathogenicity of Omicron strain BA.2.75 is inconclusive.
Looking back at the global infection tide of Omicron, at the end of 20021,Omicron BA. 1 took the lead in setting off an unprecedented epidemic peak in the world. From March to April this year, BA.2 quickly "replaced" BA. 1, which led to another round of epidemic peak in the United States, Europe and other countries. Since June, the spread of BA.4 and BA.5 mutants has aggravated the epidemic situation in Europe, America, Israel and other places, becoming the main epidemic strains in the world.
Therefore, many experts worry that BA.2.75, which has a more competitive advantage, may replace other spread varieties of BA.5, BA.4 and BA.2, but there are too few data at present to obtain reliable results, and its growth advantage may be highlighted in a few weeks.
Ulrich Erin, a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, warned that there were 1 1 mutations in the spike protein gene regions of BA.2.75 and BA.5, and the immune barrier caused by BA.5 infection probably could not protect BA.2.75, which might lead to a new infection peak.
Sudden African swine fever in Germany
On July 2, local time, the German Ministry of Agriculture issued a statement saying that African swine fever was detected in farms in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany and Brandenburg in east Germany, which are two big pig-raising states in Germany.
According to the data of the German National Bureau of Statistics, Lower Saxony is the largest pig farm in Germany, with about 6.4 million pigs and piglets.
The outbreak of African swine fever is the first case in northwest Germany. But for the German pork industry, it is undoubtedly "worse". In September 2020, after African swine fever was first discovered in eastern Germany, China, South Korea, Japan and some major pork importing countries issued a "ban" against German pork, prohibiting the import of German pork.
It should be pointed out that African swine fever is an acute and highly contagious viral pig disease, which is characterized by a short onset process. Once infected with the virus, the mortality rate is as high as 100%.
Although Germany has spent a lot of manpower and material resources trying to control African swine fever in the east, it is highly contagious, causing a large number of wild boar infections and then spreading to farms. At present, about 4000 cases of African swine fever have been diagnosed in Germany, mainly in eastern Germany.
The German epidemic has also aggravated people's concerns that swine fever may spread to neighboring countries.
Justin Charade, global strategist at ABN amro, said it was terrible news. People had hoped that African swine fever only occurred in eastern Germany and had been brought under control, but now these hopes were completely dashed.
Chaylard further pointed out that if African swine fever can cross 500 kilometers from the east of Germany to the northwest, it will probably be transferred to the Netherlands and France, which are adjacent to Germany, and the large-scale pork industry will suffer a great impact.
It should be pointed out that Germany has always been the largest pork producer in the European Union, but after the outbreak of African swine fever, Spain's pork export volume in 20021year surpassed Germany.
The industry predicts that if African swine fever continues to occur in Germany, China, South Korea, Japan and other countries will not resume importing in the short term, and the pig industry in Germany is expected to shrink further.