This was announced at a briefing for WHO member states in Geneva by the Director-General of the Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He stated that the current COVID-19 epidemiological picture, with both intense transmissions in several parts of the world and a recombinant sub-variant spreading quickly.

In recent weeks, there have been increasing reports of hospitalization and health system pressure, particularly in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere where respiratory diseases including flu are also circulating. Today, according to the WHO Director-General, outside of China, one of the Omicron sub variants originally detected in October 2022 is XBB.1.5, a recombinant of two BA.2 sub-lineages.

WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said that XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet.

G.Abdullaeva, UzA