Status: 05.01.2023 07:44
Federal Minister of Health Lauterbach is concerned about a new variant of the coronavirus: the omicron mutation is spreading rapidly in the USA. According to the WHO, it is the most contagious variant to date.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach says he is concerned about the USA: A new omicron subvariant called XBB.1.5 is spreading in the north-east of the USA, and more and more infected people have to be treated in hospital. “We monitor whether and how strong XBB.1.5 occurs in Germany,” wrote the SPD politician on Twitter. “Hopefully we can get through the winter before such a variant can spread to us.”
According to an estimate by the US health authority CDC, XBB.1.5 accounted for around 40.5 percent of all new infections in the USA in the week before the turn of the year. The mutation has been detected in 29 countries so far, increasingly in Europe.
WHO: Omicron subvariant is particularly contagious
The World Health Organization (WHO) is monitoring the spread of the variant discovered in October, which is the “most contagious subvariant discovered to date,” according to Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of response to the coronavirus pandemic. So far, however, there is no evidence that XBB.1.5 causes more severe diseases than other virus variants.
However, the increase in XBB.1.5 cases makes it clear how important it is to “continue to monitor Covid-19 worldwide”. A more detailed assessment should show a risk analysis that the WHO intends to publish shortly.