COVID-19: JN.1 Becomes ‘Variant Of Interest’

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is continuously monitoring the global spread of JN.1, a COVID-19 variant of interest, adding that current vaccines continue to offer protection against severe disease and death from this and other variants in circulation. Though its current evaluation of the global public health risk is “low”, the UN health agency cautioned that with the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the new variant “could increase” the burden of respiratory infections in many countries, noting other diseases such as RSV, influenza and childhood pneumonia that are already on the rise. Rapidly increasing spread The classification of JN.1 as a separate variant of interest (VOI) is down to “its rapidly increasing spread” around the globe, WHO said in an advisory issued on Tuesday. JN.1 has been found in many countries, including India, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Previously JN.1 was classified and tracked as part of its parent BA.2.86 lineage, which itself is a descendant of the Omicron or B.1.1.529 variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 disease. In comparison with its parent lineage BA.2.86, JN.1 has an additional mutation (the L455S mutation) in the spike protein. Risk evaluated as...