Amidst a spike in Covid cases in the country with the new JN.1 subvariant in circulation, former AIIMS director and senior pulmonologist Dr Randeep Guleria on Saturday stated the new Covid-19 sub-variant JN.1 is more transmissible and is gradually becoming dominant. He, however, assured that is not causing severe infections or hospitalisations.
“It is more transmissible, spreading more rapidly, and gradually becoming a dominant variant. It is causing more infections but the data also suggests that it is not causing severe infections or hospitalisations. Most of the symptoms are predominantly in the upper airways, like fever, cough, cold, sore throat, running nose, and body aches,” Dr Guleria was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.
Dr Guleria further explained since the new variant is a lineage of Omicron, a vaccine made for Omicron will be effective against this variant as well.
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“We need a vaccine which covers a broader type of the virus. We have had multiple mutations. Jn.1 is sub lineage of Omicron. So a vaccine which is made against Omicron will be effective against this variant also. We need more data first to show what is the current immunity in the population, and the protection that have based on the previous vaccination that we’ve got, based on that, only can we decide that do we need a new vaccine, which covers the current circulating strain, and that is something that has to be done regularly because variants will keep changing,” he said.
India has detected 25 cases of the JN.1 subvariant so far, which has been classified as ‘variant of interest’ by the World Health Organization. According to reports, 19 cases of JN.1 have been traced in Goa, four in Rajasthan, as well as one each in Kerala and Maharashtra.
SYMPTOMS OF JN.1 SUB-VARIANT
- Fever
- Runny nose
- Sore throat
- Headache
- Abdominal pain and diarrhoea
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