December 20, 2023
Out in The National News, an article reveals that India detected its first case of the JN.1 coronavirus sub-variant amid a sharp surge in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, thus prompting health authorities to ask states to increase precautionary measures against the spread of infections.
OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan comments, “COVID is with us permanently and we have to be vigilant about new strains like JN.1, a sub-lineage of BA.2.86 Omicron, that appears correlated with an increase in hospitalization for respiratory illness…We don’t yet know if the JN.1 strain is behind these hospitalizations. But given that COVID vaccination in India is no longer a continuing effort and JN.1 is able to avoid immune response to be able to spread rapidly, there is a possibility that the lack of population immunity puts us – especially the elderly population – at risk for illness and hospitalization.”
Find the article here.
