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The World Health Organisation (WHO) is investigating two new sub-variants, BA.4 and BA.5, of the highly contagious Omicron strain of Covid-19.

According to Reuters, WHO said on Monday (Apr. 11) that is has been tracking multiple cases of new sub-variants to access if they are more dangerous or infectious.

New variants

The two new sister variants of the original BA.1 Omicron variant (BA.4 and BA.5) have been added to WHO's list for monitoring.

WHO is currently tracking BA.1 and BA.2 which are the dominant variants globally now. They are also tracking variants- BA.1.1 and BA.3.

Been tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

WHO said on Apr. 6 that while SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, can change over time, most have little to no impact on the virus’ properties.

But, some of the changes may affect how "easily it spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance of vaccines, therapeutic medicines, diagnostic tools, or other public health and social measures".

Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme spoke on Covid-19 becoming an endemic yesterday (Apr. 11):

 "Endemic means, in a sense, that the virus is present and transmitting at lower levels, usually with some form of seasonal transmission..."

However, Ryan reiterated that when a disease becomes "endemic," it may still cause suffering and death, giving an example of how endemic malaria and tuberculosis do.

He added that one should not "equate endemic with equals good".

"We need sustained control on this virus, we need sustained protection of our most vulnerable, we need strong health systems to deal with those infections we can't prevent, and we need to be able to continue to do that with the levels of infections we experience."

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