Hyderabad, Jan. 1 (IANS): Just when people started to come to terms with the inherent risks associated with the BF7 variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is driving the Covid-19 wave in China, a super-variant, XBB15, has now surfaced with the potential to become a globally dominant variant in the coming months, possibly leading to another round of Covid infections among people.
At present, the XBB15 variant of SARS-CoV- 2 is behind a wave of Covid infections in multiple cities in the United States and already two cases of this mutation, one each in Gujarat and Maharashtra, have been reported in India. Due to XBB15’s huge potential to infect persons who already have gained immunity through vaccines and natural infection, geneticists have unofficially started calling it ‘Kraken’, the mythical sea monster of Norway. The XBB15 is being described as the most immunity-evasive escape vari- ant to date and is apparently spreading much faster than earlier variants, causing an increase in hospitalizations in multiple cities in the US.