April 1, 2023 – As COVID-19 cases decline worldwide, a brand new omicron variant has emerged that needs to be “kept under surveillance,” a World Health Organization official says.
The variant is known as XBB.1.16, said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19 on the WHO, at a press conference.
“Currently, there are only about 800 sequences of XBB.1.16 from 22 countries,” she said. “Most of the sequences are from India, and in India, XBB.1.16 has replaced the other variants in circulation. So, it's worth keeping an eye on this variant. It's been circulating for a few months.”
Kerkhove said XBB.1.16 is analogous to XBB.1.5 but has a further mutation within the spike protein. In laboratory studies, XBB.1.16 has been shown to be more contagious than XBB.1.5, she said, but no more severe disease has been observed in people actually infected with the brand new variant.
“To date, reports do not indicate an increase in hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions or deaths due to XBB.1.16. In addition, there are currently no reported laboratory studies on markers of disease severity for XBB.1.16,” the WHO's weekly COVID update said.
XBB.1.16 has not yet appeared on the CDC website. Variant tracker of COVID-19 within the United States. The tracker shows that XBB.1.5 is currently the dominant U.S. variant.
Fountain of Happiness reported that some sequences of the brand new variant were discovered within the United States, but in such small numbers that they didn’t crack the CDC's data tracker.
XBB.1.16 has been identified in other Asian countries, Europe, the UK and Australia, Fortune said.
WHO reported that from February 27 to March 26, about 3.6 million recent COVID cases and greater than 25,000 COVID-related deaths were reported, a decrease of 27% and 39%, respectively, from the previous 28 days.