New Delhi: A total of 656 cases of the JN. 1 subvariant of COVID-19 and one death have been reported in the country in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The total number of active COVIDs in the country has reached 3,742.
A surge in new COVID cases was seen in India on Saturday, with Kerala contributing to most of them.
A total of 423 cases have been reported, totalling 266 in Kerala and 70 in neighbouring Karnataka, according to data from the Union Health Ministry. Two deaths have been reported in Kerala.
Meanwhile, Dr. Randeep Guleria, a former director of AIIMS and a senior pulmonologist, said the new COVID subvariant is leading to severe infections or hospitalizations.
“It’s more transmissible, it’s spreading faster and it’s adapting to a dominant variant. This leads to more infections, but knowledge also suggests that it doesn’t cause serious infections or hospitalizations. Most symptoms occur primarily in the upper respiratory tract. such as fever, cough, cold, sore throat, runny nose, and body aches,” Dr. Guleria said.
Earlier, the director of India’s SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), Dr. NK Arora, also stated that no more vaccine doses against the subvariant have been received lately.
Speaking to ANI, Dr Arora said, “I would say prevention is for everyone aged 60 and above, those who are more likely to have comorbidities and those taking medications that suppress our immunity, such as patients with Cancer If you have not taken precautions so far, you are kindly requested to take precautions, otherwise no additional dose is needed.
The INSACOG chief asserted that various subvariants of Omicron have been reported but none of them have increased severity.
He reiterated that we don’t want to panic yet and that we will have to be vigilant. “I want to assure everyone that we want to be vigilant, but not panic at all,” he added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday that global number of new COVID-19 cases has increased by 52 per cent during the last one month.
In the latest epidemiological update on Friday, the UN health body reported over 850,000 new cases worldwide in the 28-day period from November 20 to December 17.
The number of new deaths decreased by 8 per cent as compared to the previous 28-day period, with over 3,000 new fatalities reported. As of December 17, over 772 million confirmed cases and nearly seven million deaths have been reported globally.
During the period from 13 November to 10 December, more than 118,000 new COVID-related hospitalizations and more than 1,600 new admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) were recorded, with an overall increase of 23% and 51% respectively among countries reporting under the existing era and beyond the reporting eras.
WHO recently classified JN.1 as a variant of interest, distinct from its parent lineage BA.2.86. However, the global health body emphasised that the overall risk posed by JN.1 remains low based on current evidence.
Due to its rapidly increasing spread, WHO is classifying the variant JN.1 as a separate variant of interest (VOI) from the parent lineage BA.2.86. It was previously classified as VOI as part of BA.2.86 sublineages.
The cases of this new variant have been found not only in India but also in other countries, including the US, Singapore and England.
Around 1 in 24 people in England and Scotland have COVID-19, with London being the worst-hit region as the highly infectious JN. 1 variant spreads rapidly.
The prevalence is also among other older people aged 18 to 44, according to a joint report by the U. K. Health Security Agency and the Office for National Statistics released on Thursday.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said JN. 1 accounted for between 39 and 50 cases in the U. S. as of Dec. 23, according to agency projections.
That’s up from an estimated 15% in the U. S. , the CDC predicted Dec. 8.
The CDC said the variant continues to cause a percentage of infections to develop and is now the most circulating variant in the country.
The continued spread suggests that the variant is more transmissible or more effective at evading the immune formula than circulating variants, he adds.
It’s too early to know the extent to which JN. 1 will lead to higher infections or hospitalizations, the CDC said, adding that existing vaccines, tests and remedies still work well against this virus.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization classified JN. 1 as a “variant of interest” and said existing evidence indicates the threat to public health is low due to the strain.
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