WHO epidemiologist issues new advisory amid rise in Omicron variants

As new Omicron variants are spreading around the globe and becoming a cause of concern, World Health Organization (WHO)'s infectious disease epidemiologist, Maria Van Kerkhove, on Tuesday, called for 'sustained surveillance of the (Covid) virus amid Omicron Variants of Concern dominance worldwide'.

According to a report in Indian Express, Kerkhove said that with almost 80 per cent of the sequences that are reported worldwide being of the BA.5, and their sub-lineages, XBB is a recombinant of actually two BA.2 sublineages, and specifically, BA.2.10.1 and B.2.75. She further added that It is one of the more than 300 sub-lineages of Omicron that we and our partners are tracking worldwide.

Kerkhove's message was shared on WHO's Twitter handle, and also highlights how the rising sublineages are receiving attention. She adds that 'because we do see a growth advantage of XBB and we are seeing increases in case detection in some countries. We don’t see signals of a change in the severity of the XBB recombinant. So, it’s still low levels of circulation. But we need to keep an eye on it because it is Omicron, it has a large number of mutations like all of the Omicron sublineages, and because it has its fitness advantage.'

While the new Covid variants are causing fear worldwide, in India, they do not lead to more hospital admissions and deaths. Though it is considered mild, the new variants are still fast-spreading ones.

Elaborating on the same, the epidemiologist further stated that we do see increased transmissions but we don't see a change in severity. Our diagnostics work. Our vaccines work added Kerkhove.

WHO, previously stated on its website that the organisation has added a new category to its variant tracking system, namely Omicron subvariants under monitoring, in order to signal to health authorities worldwide, which Variant of Concern (VOC) lineages may require prioritised attention and monitoring.