According to The Independent, there are five of them, with laboratories confirming 135 cases by sequencing.
A subvariant of the XBB.1.16 omikron mutation, named arcturus after the brightest star in the Shepherd constellation and the third brightest star in the night sky, is also spreading in India, where it caused a 13-fold increase in cases in one month. The city of Maharashtra and the metropolis of Delhi reported a thousand cases a day last week. The country recorded a similar number of coronavirus infections for the first time this year.
Indian doctors noted that children infected with it also developed conjunctivitis. In several union states, for example in the southern Indian state of Kerala, face masks are being reintroduced due to the new subvariant.
According to the WHO, arcturus has already spread to 32 countries in the world, including the United States. There, last week, it was responsible for roughly ten percent of the coronavirus cases, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Kraken subvariant is still the dominant cause of covid-19.
According to experts, arcturus has mutations in the spike protein that could lead to higher infectivity. That is why the WHO monitors its spread and the severity of the disease it causes.
However, compared to other omicron subvariants, it has no increased ability to evade vaccine-derived protection.
WHO: Vaccines against covid have saved over a million lives in Europe
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