The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday announced that the fast-spreading coronavirus Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, has been identified in more than 25 countries.
The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant is dominating in the U.S. and is the most contagious version of Covid-19 yet but appears not to make sufferers sicker than previous variants.
At least one case of the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant has been confirmed in South Africa.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Friday said his organisation was “following closely and assessing the risk of this subvariant and will report accordingly”.
Earlier this week, WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, Maria van Kerkhove, admitted global health officials were worried about the speed at which XBB.1.5 was spreading in the northeastern U.S.
“It is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet,” Van Kerkhove said during a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday.
“The reason for this are the mutations that are within this subvariant of omicron allowing this virus to adhere to the cell and replicate easily.”
The WHO doesn’t have any data yet on the severity of XBB.1.5.
The WHO’s advisory group that tracks Covid variants is conducting a risk assessment on XBB.1.5 that it will publish in the coming days, she said.
“The more this virus circulates the more opportunities it will have to change,” Van Kerkhove said.
“We do expect further waves of infection around the world but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work.”
The Covid-19 resurgence has been felt most in China, where estimates are that about 40 percent of the population has been infected with the virus in the last month.
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