Amid rising Covid cases, a new sub-variant of the pandemic named BA.2.75 has been detected in India. According to WHO officials, this new sub-variant of the pandemic was first discovered in India, and now, it is present in over 10 countries.
World Health Organization closely monitoring the developments
As cases skyrocket, the World Health Organization (WHO) is closely monitoring the current developments.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the number of cases globally has increased nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks.
"In Europe and America, BA.4 and BA.5 are driving waves. In countries like India, a new sub-lineage of BA.2.75 has also been detected, which we're following," said the apex health body's chief.
Will BA.2.75 evade vaccine immunity?
During a recent briefing, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that more studies need to be carried out to determine whether the new sub-variant is capable of evading the immunity offered by vaccines.
"There are still limited sequences available of the sub-variant to analyse, but this sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. It's still too early to know if this sub-variant has properties of additional immune evasion or indeed of being more clinically severe. We don't know that," said Swaminathan.
She added, "We have to wait and see."
Signaling the arrival of a fourth wave, India reported 18,930 new Covid infections and 35 deaths in the past 24 hours. The number of active cases in India has also risen to 1.19 lakh.
