Covid Alarm in TS : Telangana report 3 cases of covid new variant ‘Kraken’ XBB15

Twin cities

XBB15 covid new variant which was routed from the recent wave of Covid infections across the United States and the United Kingdom has made its way to Telangana.

The latest (GSD) by Hyderabad- based genetic laboratories attached to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG) have reported 3 XBB15 positive cases in Telangana.

• New Covid super variant XBB15 spreading faster around the world

Last fortnight, genetic laboratories attached to INSACOG in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Karnataka and a few other states have intensified samples from Covid-positive patients for genetic sequencing to ascertain Covid strains that are circulating locally.

Between December and January 2, a total of six XBB14 infections have been reported in India three were from Telangana, two from Maharashtra and one from Gurajat.

Geneticists from US including the first scientist who detected XBB15 in New Work, JP Weiland have made it clear that the US variant is poised to ‘wash out the board’ of most other variants circulating worldwide, and will likely create significant waves in most of the countries.

There is a reason behind such an assertion i.e XBB15 has acquired several vital mutations making it the most immunity-evasive escape variant to date. XBB15 spread much faster than any other earlier Omicron variants, leading to an increase in hospitalization in US cities. In fact, within a short period of one week, the XBB15 variant now is causing over 40 per cent of Covid infections in the US and UK. Due to its potential to quickly infect, geneticists have unofficially started calling it ‘KRAKEN’, the mythical Scandinavian sea monster.

Kraken XBB15 is:

The XBB.1.5 is a sub-variant of the Omicron XBB variant, which is a recombinant of the Omicron BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75 sub- variants. Due to the highly invasive nature of XBB15, geneticists and scientists believe that the global spread of XBB15 is a super variant from the US and UK.

Recognised epidemiologist Dr Eric Feigl- Ding in the microblogging site Twitter said “ When XBB15 shows up, all the variants basically bite the dust. The key double advantages of this XBB15 are that it has much higher immunity escape and higher human cell ACE2 binding that bestows it higher cell infectivity”.

As the Covid variant is successive over the past three years. Though they are such bad experiences, the further variant XBB15 continues to collapse the health economy in the world and triggers a horror deja vu among many citizens in Hyderabad.

With this full super fast variant XBB15 on the Indian population will play- out in the coming days, senior medical officials and health organizations have advised everyone to be cautious and urged people to start taking precautions at every level at the same time like how they are so conscious enough of the past Covid variants.

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