It Disease Control and Prevention CentersThe airport screening program has detected multiple cases of the new Covid 19 Variant NB.1.8.1, which has been linked to a great increase in the virus in China.
The cases linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant have been reported to international arrival travelers at California airports, the Washington state, Virginia and the New York City area, according to records hanging by CDC airport test membership partner, Ginkgo Bioworks.
Details on the results of the sequencing, which were published In recent weeks, in Gisaid, or a global initiative on sharing all flu data, the virus database shows the cases derived from passengers from various countries, including Japan, South Korea, France, Thailand, Netherlands, Spain, Vietnam, China and Taiwan. Travelers were tried from April 22 to May 12, according to records.
A CDC spokesman did not respond immediately to CBS News Comment Request.
The cases of NB.1.8.1 have also been reported by health authorities from other states, including Ohio, Rhode Island and Hawaii, separated from the airport cases. In California and the state of Washington, the first cases date back to the end of March and the beginning of April.
Experts have been Looking detained The variant, which is now dominant in China and is increasing in Asia. Hong Kong authorities say that Covid-19 rates in the city have risen to the worst levels they have seen in at least one year, after a “significant increase” in visits to the emergency rooms and Hospitalizations of Covid-19.
While Hong Kong authorities say There is no evidence that the variant, a descendant of the XDV lineage of the virus, is more severe, have begun to urge residents to mask -when they are by public transport or busy places as the cases have risen.
Taiwan health authorities have Also reported An increase in emergency visits, severe and dead cases. Local health authorities say that vaccines and antiviral treatments are stored in response to the epidemic wave.
Preliminary data Researchers in China suggest that the variant NB.1.8.1 is not better to evade the immune system compared to other increasing strains, but it has a greater capacity to join human cells, which suggests that it could be more transmissible.
“A more predictable pattern”
The strain arose several times during a Thursday meeting from Food and Drug AdministrationVaccine advisers outside the vaccine, as they struggled in case and how to recommend updating – Covid-19 vaccines For the upcoming autumn and winter stations.
Vaccines of past season Aimed at a descendant of the JN.1 variant called KP.2. The first data presented to the Pfizer and Modern Committee suggested to change to a different JN.1 descendant that has been dominant in recent months, called LP.8.1, could also increase protection against NB.1.8.1.
“The LP.8.1 vaccine has the highest titles against the LP.8.1, which is dominant in the United States and in many other regions and neutralizes other variants that are currently circulating, including NB.1.8.1, he told The Panel on JN.1.
The Committee unanimously supported that next season vaccines would have to guide some type of JN.1 variant, but it was divided into details. Some favored the vaccine manufacturers to stick to the vaccines last season, while others requested that the update be targeted at the LP.8.1 A descendant of Jn.1 that Pfizer and Modern have prototyped.
“ Although evolution cannot be predicted and you do not know how to continue to diversify -the overwhelming odds are that what is coming and prevailing in the coming months, next six months, next year will come from something that circulates now.They will come from something that does not exist anymore, ” said Jerry Weir, director of the FDA viral product division.
For now, CDC and FDA officials told the group that only a strain – a variant called XFC – has been growing significantly in the United States, but warned that the evolution of the virus has been essential, even when the country has been installed in a relatively predictable pattern of two candles a year: once in summer and once during the winter.
Last season he only saw an evolutionary “drift” in the virus, as opposed to the type of replacement that were promoted by highly mutated strains in some previous years. While Covid-19 trends rose in winter, they remained well below the previous peaks.
“During this winter, we did not see the replacement of tension we have in the last two years. But I am not saying that the virus does not change again in the immediate future,” said Natalie Thornburg from the CDC on the panel. Thornburg is the acting head of the laboratory branch in the CDC division for crown and other respiratory viruses.
Covid-19 rates have dropped again at low levels nationally, measured through Emergency visits and Wastewater test.
“I think after five years now we are seeing very different patterns than [are] Falling into a more predictable pattern, “said Thornburg, citing a” seasonal analysis “that the agency has been working on the virus.