Experts not concerned about new XBB COVID-19 variant
Experts are not concerned about a new COVID-19 variant, which has recently arrived in Australia, based on early evidence.
The XBB strain emerged in Singapore last week, with transmission currently at low levels across New South Wales and Victoria.
NSW Health said the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants continued to be the most common strains but their dominance was declining.
“We will be closely monitoring the emergence of variants and other international and local data over the next seven to 14 days to assess growth potential of the new variants in the context of the NSW population immunity profile,” a statement from NSW Health read.
COVID-19 hospitalisations and PCR testing has decreased slightly in the last week.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) met two days ago to discuss the emergence of the XBB variant.
WHO said it did not believe XBB and BQ.1, the other new variant, warranted public health concern as the stains did not “diverge sufficiently from each other or from other Omicron linages”.
However there was early evidence of a higher reinfection risk of those who were infected in the pre-Omicron period, WHO said.
So far XBB has been detected in 35 countries and it has not been associated with an increase in new infections.
The subvariants and mutations of COVID-19
