A nurse administers a COVID-19 test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department. AP
A new Covid variant, the subvariant of Omicron XBB.1.5, that has now become the dominant strain in US, has picked up a new moniker, “Kraken.”
World Health Organisation (WHO) said that the “Kraken” variant has now been identified in over 28 countries.
XBB.1.5, the descendant of the Omicron XBB variant, was named by an expert group convened by WHO. The group has been responsible for naming all the Covid variants of global concern and normally uses Greek alphabets to identify a variant.
Previous strains like Alpha, Beta and Delta fell under this convention, according to a report by Bloomberg.
However, following the emergence of Omicron, the last Greek-named subvariant of Covid, it was thought the world wouldn’t witness the origin of another variant or strains. Omicron itself has a string of sub-lineages, including XBB.1.5 and their names are based on a mix of alphabets and numbers called “Pango.”
This method of naming variants and their sub-lineages led to the rise in informal online nicknames, which includes “Kraken.” The XBB.1.5 was named by an evolutionary professor on Twitter to equate its strength with a mythical sea monster.
WHO says XBB most transmissible subvariant
The WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said the global health officials are worried about how quickly the subvariant is spreading in the northeastern US.
The WHO said that XBB.1.5, however, does not appear to make people sicker.
“It is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet,” Kerkhove said, adding, “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.”
She further said the WHO does not have any specific data yet on the severity of XBB.1.5, “but there’s no indication at the moment that it makes people sicker than previous versions of omicron.”
Kerkhove further said the WHO’s advisory group that tracks Covid variants is conducting a risk assessment on XBB.1.5 and is expected to publish it in the coming days.
“The more this virus circulates the more opportunities it will have to change. 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,” she added.
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