ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) has issued an advisory regarding new sub-variant of Covid-19 i.e. JN.1 of Omicron to ensure timely preventive and control measures encompassing preparedness to deal with increased workload expected in the outpatient and inpatient departments during next few weeks.

It stated that Covid-19 virus genome had consistently changed over the course of the pandemic, resulting in variants that were different from the original Covid-19 virus.

“World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified these mutations as either Variant of Interest (VoI) with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; and identified to cause significant community transmission or multiple clusters of infected persons. Variant of Concern (VoC) associated with changes at a degree of global public health significance like increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology,” it said in a statement.

“JN1 is classified as VoI and fundamentally an offshoot of BA.2.86 sub-variant Omicron variant of Covid-19 virus, very first reported in August, 2023 by US-CDC. However, in recent weeks JN1 has been reported in many countries and its prevalence is rapidly increasing globally. This rapid growth is observed across the three WHO regions with consistent sharing of SARS-CoV-2 sequences i.e. the region of the Americas, Western Pacific and the European regions, with the largest increase seen in Western Pacific,” it stated.

Although JN1 was rapidly replacing over other sub-variants and its transmissibility was expected to be high but it was unlikely that it can produce a situation like earlier phase of pandemic, hence its morbidity and mortality was low as of current statistics.

“Clinical presentation of JN1infection is similar to other sub­-variants, including cough, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, sneezing, fatigue, headache, muscle aches and altered sense of smell. However, symptoms presentation depend on individual’s immunity from vaccination and previous infection. It’s important to know that existing vaccines, tests, and treatments still work well against JN1,” it stated.

Despite a rapid increase in JN1 infections, available limited evidence does not suggest that the associated disease severity is higher as compared to other circulating variants. Currently, available vaccines also offer same protection against JN1 sub-variants as with other variants.

Prevention and control measures

IHRA has suggested that if someone is sick or has been in close contact with persons having flu-like illness, they should adopt the following preventive measures for limiting the Covid-19 transmission.

“Frequent and thorough hand washing with soap and water and use of hand sanitizer if soap and water are unavailable, to opt for respiratory etiquettes through covering mouth and nose while sneezing or coughing with elbow, sick patients to stay at home, take rest and avoid crowds, taking social distancing measures until recovery. Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent infection and its severe outcomes particularly in high risk groups. The more antibodies with complete vaccine dose or booster shots, the greater the chances of reducing Covid-19 infection specially among high risk groups including elderly population people with co-morbidities and people working in high risk settings,” it suggests.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2024