The new Kraken strain of COVID-19 transmits more quickly, but there is no evidence that it is more severe or leads to increased mortality.
The Deputy Minister of Health Ihor Kuzin told about this at the briefing.
"There are no specific symptoms, the disease progresses like a normal coronavirus infection. But there are certain virological and immunological features. It has an increased tendency to infection rate, i.e. it is transmitted 8% faster than the average Omicron. In the U.S., where all the lines are clearly fixed, it led to an increase in incidence from 1% to 8% in almost three weeks. This is its only feature. Currently, there is no convincing evidence that it can be more severe, is aggressive, or increases the mortality rate, or can cause a higher percentage of specific co-morbidities — there is no such information. Research is ongoing," Kuzin noted.
He reminded that starting in 2021, the sequencing of the COVID-19 genome is being carried out in Ukraine in order to find out which types of coronaviruses are circulating in the country. Currently, 900 such studies have already been conducted on the basis of the Public Health Center, and according to Kuzin, the network of conducting such studies will be expanded in 2023.
In general, as noted by the State Medical Examiner, 12 subtypes of Omicron are currently recorded in Ukraine.
According to him, the longer it circulates, the more subtypes of the virus will be detected in Ukraine.
- On January 23, the first case of infection with a new subspecies of the “Omicron XBB.1.5” (or “Kraken”) coronavirus strain was recorded in Ukraine.