The World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated COVID-19 variant BA.2.86 as a ‘variant under monitoring’ on Thursday due to the large number of mutations it carries.
The variant has been detected through genetic sequencing, although only a handful of such sequences have so far been reported. The first was reported in Israel, with the variant since being detected in Denmark and the US. Now UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed the variant has been detected in the UK, making it the fifth such sequence worldwide to be reported, The Guardian reports.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday it is tracking a recently discovered COVID-19 strain, BA.2.86, after a case of the highly mutated variant was discovered in Michigan, CBS News reported.
"Today we are more prepared than ever to detect and respond to changes in the COVID-19 virus. Scientists are working now to understand more about the newly identified lineage in these 4 cases and we will share more information as it becomes available," CDC spokesperson Kathleen Conley said in a statement to CBS News.
Experts say reports of BA.2.86 being spotted in countries on multiple continents — Denmark, Israel, the UK and the US — suggest it is at least capable of transmitting widely and could have been spreading undetected for some time, CBS News added.
The Guardian report quoted Dr Meera Chand, deputy director at UKHSA, as saying, “We are aware that BA.2.86 has been detected in the UK. UKHSA is assessing the situation and will provide further information in due course,”
Prof Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute, said BA.2.86 was the most striking Covid strain the world has witnessed since the emergence of Omicron, The Guardian said.
“The most plausible scenario is that the lineage acquired its mutations during a long-term infection in a immunocompromised person over a year ago and then spread back into the community,” he said.
“BA.2.86 has since then probably been circulating in a region of the world with poor viral surveillance, and has now been repeatedly exported to other places in the world,” the professor has been quoted as saying by The Guardian.
Balloux added that how well the new variant fared relative to other Omicron subvariants would become clearer in the coming weeks.
“Nothing is known at this stage about its intrinsic transmissibility and virulence,” he said.
