A new Covid variant, which is spreading rapidly across the world, has been detected in the UK and is being described as ‘the “most transmissible yet”, a World Health Organisation (WHO) scientist has said. The deadly virus is already causing large numbers of hospital admissions in the UK - and the subvariant has reportedly been detected across the USA.
The highly infectious XBB.1.5 version is now causing around 70 per cent of new infections in US hotspots were it is spreading fastest, the Mirror reports. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has warned that winter illnesses, including flu and Covid-19, continue to circulate at “high levels”.
As a result, officials are urging people to keep children with a fever off school and are advising unwell adults to wear face masks to stem the spread of infections. It comes as pharmacists have reported shortages of common medicines for colds and flu including throat lozenges, cough mixtures and some pain killers.
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“Our concern is how transmissible it is,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid. “The more this virus circulates, the more chances it will have to change.”
Ms Van Kerkhove explained: “‘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.”
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, also said that the rise of XBB.1.5 was “stunning”. He tweeted: “Over the holidays, you may have heard about Omicron XBB.1.5. It went from four per cent of sequences to 40 per cent in just a few weeks. That’s a stunning increase.”
Dr Jha also said that it is likely the subvariant is more contagious. He tweeted: “1. More immune evasive? Probably yes. More than other Omicron variants. 2. More inherently contagious? May be. It binds more tightly to the human ACE receptor. Might affect contagiousness. 3. Is it more dangerous: We don’t know.”
University of Warwick virologist Prof Lawrence Young told The Independent he believes the UK is not ready to deal with another Covid wave spreading rapidly. “We didn’t have enough public health messaging around the flu jab. We’ve now got a perfect storm of different respiratory infections going around at the moment and that’s inevitably going to result in more pressure on the NHS,” he said.
“All the information so far shows that whilst this is a very infectious variant and while it can escape the protections from previous vaccination and past infection. But there’s no evidence it’s causing more severe disease compared to other Omicron variants.
"However, the fact that it’s spreading more and more rapidly, particularly in the US, is very concerning. It’s reaching out to more vulnerable people.”
In the UK, XBB.1.5 is being blamed for one in every 25 infections. According to the Sanger Institute, one of the UK’s largest Covid surveillance centres, four per cent of Coronavirus cases in the week to December 17 were caused by XBB.1.5.
The subvariant is a mutated version of Omicron XBB, which was detected in Singapore, India and 33 other countries in October. Talking about the shortage of drugs and cold treatments in chemists in the UK, UK Health Security Agency Chief executive Leyla Hannbeck said: “Pharmacists are struggling to obtain the very basic, most common cold and flu medicine.
“This isn’t just the branded medicines, it is also simple things like throat lozenges, cough mixtures or pain killers – particularly the ones that are soluble. The demand has been high because this season we’ve seen higher cases of colds and flu and people are obviously trying very hard to look after themselves and making sure that they use the relevant products to manage the symptoms. And that has led to a shortage of these products in terms of us not being able to obtain them.”
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