A new strain of Covid nicknamed “The Kraken” is “the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet”, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The latest subvariant – another spinoff of Omicron officially named XBB.1.5 – has already taken hold in the US where it is thought to be behind roughly 70 per cent of new infections in the worst affected areas and 4 in 10 overall.
Now it has started to sweep across the UK, indicating it has a major growth advantage over rival strains.
But XBB.1.5 appears to be just as mild as its ancestor Omicron and its variants.
Concern about XBB.1.5 is largely based on how it is currently surging in the US, but it has also already been spotted in Britain and other countries around the globe.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for Covid, told a press conference Wednesday: ‘We are concerned about its growth advantage in particular in some countries in Europe and in the US… particularly the Northeast part of the United States, where XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced other circulating variants.
‘Our concern is how transmissible it is… and the more this virus circulates, the more opportunities it will have to change.’
Statistics from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed the strain is behind 41 per cent of cases in America.
In the UK meanwhile, data from GISAID and CoVariants.org suggests that XBB.1.5 was responsible for just under 8 per cent of cases in the two weeks to January 2.
But the latest figures from the Sanger Institute, one of the UK’s largest Covid surveillance centres, suggests XBB.1.5 is behind up to half of all Covid cases in the worst-hit regions.
The Sanger Institute’s research shows 50 per cent of cases in Wirral last week were caused by the ‘Kraken’.
XBB.1.5 has also been detected in countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and India. (Daily Mail)
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