The variant has not yet led to a global sweep as some previous variants have done. "Vaccination remains our best defence against future COVID waves, so it is still as important as ever that people take up all the doses for which they are eligible as soon as possible."Īs the first emergence of XBB.1.16 was more than three months ago, the WHO declared the level of risk regarding "growth advantage" as "moderate". "UKHSA continues to analyse all available data relating to SARS-CoV-2 variants in the UK and abroad and is monitoring the situation closely. In the UK - as of 17 April 2023 - there were 135 XBB.1.16 sequences in the UK, with 120 in England, eight in Wales, five in Scotland, and two in Northern Ireland.ĭr Meera Chand, deputy director at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said: "It is not unexpected to see new variants of SARS-CoV-2 emerge. "So it does look like it will become the dominant variant at some point, but whether it will generate a further wave in infections and, if so, how big that wave will be, is not yet clear," he said. It is increasing a bit faster in the US and already is at about 10% of reported infections. He continues: "It is increasing in the UK but not as rapidly as previous new variants did and is now responsible for about 2% of infections. Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in researching transmission of emerging infectious diseases, tells Sky News XBB.1.16 "certainly has taken over in India but is not being as aggressive in the UK or the US". It has been in circulation for a few months." It's actually very similar in profile to XBB.1.5. Nepal's economy contracted for the first time in four decades in the last fiscal year due to a months-long lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.Addressing the new variant's emergence at a press conference on 29 March, Dr Van Kerkhove said: "This is the XBB.1.16. Sharma Oli has been criticised for his response to the crisis.įoreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali told reporters on Sunday that despite the surge in cases a national level lockdown was not required. Nepal's ruling Communist party has been embroiled in a power struggle for months, and Prime Minister K.P. "This time even children and young people are brought in critical condition and patients are even sleeping on the floor and corridors," he said. He said the hospital was inundated with coronavirus patients requiring intensive care and ventilators. "The situation is really frightening," said Prakash Thapa, a doctor at Bheri hospital in Nepalgunj, a city in the southwest plains bordering India. Nepal's former king Gyanendra and his wife, who tested positive for the virus after returning from India where they attended a religious festival, were undergoing treatment at a private facility in Kathmandu. The border was closed for some time during a lockdown last year, when the first wave of the epidemic struck, but it has since been reopened. Wedged between China and India, Nepal shares a 1,751-kilometre (1,094 miles) border with its southern neighbour India. "The virus is mutating very fast.what started in India has now entered Nepal too," said Rabindra Pandey, a public health expert, adding that if the trend continued for a week then new patients will be unable to find any beds as hospitals were already stretched. Over 90 developing nations, including Nepal, rely on India, home to the Serum Institute, the world's largest vaccine maker, for the doses to protect their own populations, but India has now prioritised its own needs as a second wave of the epidemic there has run out of control. But health experts feared that continuation of the vaccination drive was uncertain after officials had failed to procure more vaccine shots from India or any other source. Nepal launched its vaccination campaign in January and gave shots to 1.9 million people, all provided by India and China. "We have detected the UK variant and the double mutant variant detected in India," Krishna Prasad Paudel, the director of Nepal's Epidemiology and Disease Control Department Paudel told Reuters, adding that experts were checking for other variants too. It took the total caseload since the pandemic first struck Nepal to 300,119, and there have so far been 3,164 deaths, according to government data. Nepal, which shares a long porous border with India, reported 3,032 new infections on Sunday, the highest daily surge recorded this year. KATHMANDU, April 26 (Reuters) - Authorities in Nepal were grappling to contain the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases with experts fearing that thousands of people in the Himalayan state have caught the more infectious mutant strains emerging out of India.
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