Mexico City.- The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned of a new subvariant of the virus responsible for covid-19, XBB.1.5.
“There is intense transmission and pressure on health systems, particularly in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and a recombinant subvariant is spreading rapidly. XBB.1.5 is the recombinant of two BA.2 sublineages,” Ghebreyesus said during a speech. pronounced in a briefing this Thursday.
Likewise, the head of the WHO indicated that this omicron variant, which was first identified in October 2022, has been detected in 29 countries and appears to be growing rapidly in certain parts of the world. “WHO is closely monitoring, evaluating and will inform Member States of the risk accordingly,” he added.
This Wednesday Ghebreyesus was optimistic, stating that he believes and hopes that, with the appropriate efforts —which include focusing on the management of clinical care, vaccines and treatments— this year the covid-19 pandemic will officially end.
concern in Germany
That same day, the German Health Minister, Karl Lauterbach, publicly expressed his concern about the new subvariant of the coronavirus, through a message posted on his official Twitter account.
“The new XBB.1.5 variant is increasing hospitalizations in the northeastern United States,” reads the text, which cites a tweet that addresses this issue, and which details that the new strain “became dominant” in the American country less than two weeks ago.
In this sense, Lauterbach pointed out that from Berlin they hope to be able to spend the winter before a new variant spreads in their country.
Infectious disease experts have also become increasingly concerned about this new subvariant, which corresponds to more than 40% of cases in the US, according to official data last week cited by Reuters.
In fact, seven out of 10 US states with rising infections and hospitalizations are in the nation’s Northeast, where the highest numbers of XBB.1.5 are reported, explained Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.
