Officials have forecast that it is not expected to produce a significant risk to the public health.
Officials in the European Union said that a new COVID-19 variant is expected to rise across the EU in the coming weeks.
The variant, NB.1.8.1, spread across mainland China earlier this year and has now reached the United States, where it accounts for more than a third of all COVID-19 cases, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update issued on June 13.
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) officials said, however, that the variant “is not expected to cause an increased risk to public health compared to other recently circulating Omicron-descendant SARS-CoV-2 variants.”
“No clinical studies are currently available for COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness for NB.1.8.1, but no significant impact on vaccine effectiveness against severe disease is anticipated based on its mutation profile and early laboratory studies,” the EU health body said on June 13. “NB.1.8.1 is currently circulating at low proportions in the EU/EEA but is expected to rise in the coming weeks,” the statement added, referring to the European Economic Area.
It also said that “slow increases” in the virus that causes COVID-19 have been seen in the EU or EEA in recent weeks but that “levels remain low and no significant impact on secondary care, or on the number of deaths” so far.
From May 25 to June 7 in the United States, the NB.1.8.1 variant was the second most prevalent strain by just one percentage point, following the LP.8.1 strain, according to a CDC update issued on June 13. A previous CDC update showed that NB.1.8.1 wasn’t being tracked in the country, as of late May.
A map released by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) shows that the variant has been found in Hawaii, California, Washington state, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Last month, the World Health Organization deemed NB.1.8.1 a “variant under monitoring” due to its rapid spread throughout several regions, namely in parts of Asia. But it noted that the variant doesn’t appear to be causing more severe illness.
