The new variant of Covid-19, commonly known as Eris, is now accounting for half of the cases found in hospital and healthcare settings, according to a Professor of Immunology at Dublin City University.
Community transmission of Covid-19 is reported to be on the rise, and cases in hospitals have increased.
Professor Christine Loscher said the Eris variant is not dominant in the community at the moment.
Eris is a further mutation of the virus and different to the variants seen so far.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, she said Eris is still in the Omicron family, but it has more mutations.
"Those mutations that we have seen over the evolution of the virus is that usually when mutations occur in a subvariant that then establishes in the population, it is because those mutations give it increased transmissibility and more vaccine or immune evasiveness, which means it is better at transmitting and it is better at avoiding the antibody and t-cell immunity that we have built up from vaccines and prior infections," she said.
Prof Loscher added that it is difficult to get a grasp on numbers to compare them with last year, as there is no longer mass PCR testing, with many people doing antigen testing, and many not reporting infections.
"We are probably only seeing - between PCR and antigen testing - 600-700 cases a day, but I think we are fairly sure that it is multiples of that, so we know it is quite high in the community."
While hospital cases are at around 400, she said it did increase last month and has "stayed steady around that number", but now it is contributing to outbreaks in the hospital.
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"That's a huge concern in terms of containment of infection in hospital, it is also a huge concern in terms of the knock-on effect for elective surgeries, people going in for appointments and indeed visitors.
"It is something that we are dealing with on a case-by-case basis. There are some hospitals where numbers are very high, and they have additional infection control measures in place. And that’s appropriate that we don’t do a blanket across-the-board changing of the guidelines when there’s only issues in certain places, and it is not the same in all hospitals, it is only in some healthcare settings," she said.
'Most highly mutated' version of Omicron
Professor Loscher said variant BA.2.86, Pirola, that is being monitored by the World Health Organization is "one of the most highly mutated versions of Omicron that we have seen so far".
She added that it has only been detected in four countries to date, adding that if a variant is highly transmissible case numbers should rise rapidly, but as this has not yet happened, which might indicate that it is not going to be a huge concern.
She said it is too early to tell how the mutations will translate into the behaviour of the virus, and how dangerous it will be.
Free antigen tests
Prof Loscher said the biggest barrier to getting people to engage with antigen testing was the cost.
"One of the biggest barriers to people making good decisions about what they do if they become ill is whether or not they have the money for an antigen test.
"People will engage in making good decisions about whether or not to go out into the community if they have better access to antigen testing."
She said the tests should be freely available from certain pick-up points, or the HSE should go back to delivering antigen tests to a household if someone tested positive.
