Skip to main content

Alpha variant de-escalated classification (B.1.1.7 and Q.*)

ECDC de-escalates the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7 and Q.*) from the status of Concern (VOC)

Published: 29 September 2021

On September 3rd 2021, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the most important health authority in the European Union, revised the classification of the Alpha variant (consisting of lineage B.1.1.7 and derivative lineages Q.*) from the status of “Variants of Concern (VOC)” to “De-escalated Variant”. A brief summary of the main reasons behind this decision is herein reported.
Alpha variant de-escalated classification (B.1.1.7 and Q.*)

Founded back in 2005, the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is the most important health authority of the European Union.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, one of the main objectives of this organization was to monitor the development and spreading of SARS-CoV-2 variants inside the Union, by publishing weekly updates and establishing a classification method of the variants based on the guidelines released by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In late 2020, a novel variant of SARS-CoV-2, initially detected in the United Kingdom was singled out as it became the most prevalent variant in Europe. On December 20th this variant was awarded the status of VOC by ECDC. Soon after, based on a novel nomenclature convention proposed by WHO, the novel variant of concern was re-labelled “Alpha”. According to the current definition, Variants of Concern (VOC) are all variants of SARS-CoV-2 that, in the light of a higher infectivity and/or immune escape ability, represent a severe risk for public health.
As also reported by several highlights available on this portal, in the last few months the prevalence of the Alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2 was drastically reduced in Europe. Based also on this evidence, on September 3rd 2021, ECDC decided to remove Alpha from the list of SARS-CoV-2 VOC and change its classification to “De-escalated Variant”, that is variants of the virus characterized by at least one of following properties:

There are two main reasons behind this decision. First of all, consequent to the spread of the Delta VOC, a drastic reduction in the circulation of the Alpha variant was observed in Europe furthermore, current scientific evidences suggest that currently available vaccines are highly effective in preventing the infection from the Alpha variant, and thus the probabilities that this variant could impact negatively ongoing vaccination campaigns is considered to be very low.

Source: ECDC.