Arcturus, the new Covid strain sparking alarm in India, is already in UK
A new Covid variant wreaking havoc in India is already in Britain, MailOnline can reveal.
Health chiefs announced last month that “Arcturus” had been discovered in the country. Nearly 50 cases have now been reported.
WhoaHospitals in India are now on red alert, with mandatory face masks being brought back in some states to curb explosive infection rates, which have risen 13-fold over the past month.
‘Arcturus’ is a spin-off from Omicron and is considered to be the most contagious variety to date.
The new Covid variant ‘Arcturus’ caused a huge increase in cases in India over the past month
While the rise is of some concern, it is still well below the devastating spate of cases the country experienced in 2021 from the Delta wave
However, top scientists do not expect the variant – scientifically named XBB.1.16 – to be more deadly than other strains of Covid currently circulating.
Today, the disease caused by the coronavirus is very similar to that of the flu, unlike in the early days of the pandemic.
The UK Health and Security Agency said the variant was already in the UK in its latest variant report released last month.
Separate data collected from variant trackers reports that the UK has now sequenced nearly 50 samples from Arcturus.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, said it was too early to say whether XBB.1.16 would cause a significant increase in cases in the UK, but noted that thankfully it was not a more serious disease seemed to cause .
What is ‘Arcturus’ and should we be concerned?
A new Covid variant dubbed ‘Arcturus’ has sparked some concern following a spate of cases in India.
What is Arcturus?
‘Arcturus’ is the name given to the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.16.
It is a spin-off strain, similar to that of the Kraken variant (XBB.1.5).
Where has it been spotted?
It emerged in March and has since been reported in 22 countries, but by far the largest outbreak has been in India.
Why has it caused concern?
‘Arcturus’ has led to an increase in cases in India, with infections rising 13-fold over the past month.
This has prompted the country’s health authorities to conduct hospital exercises and reintroduce mask mandates in some areas.
Is it dangerous?
‘Arcturus’ has mutations on its spike protein that the Word Health Organization says could increase its ability to infect humans and cause disease.
Japanese researchers have suggested it is 1.2 times more contagious than the already super-transmissible Kraken.
However, there is no evidence that it increases the severity of the disease.
But a rise in cases could put pressure on health services.
Do vaccines still work?
Early results suggest ‘Arcturus’ has no greater ability to evade vaccine protections compared to other Omicron spin-offs
“Although it has taken off in India in recent weeks, globally it is not increasing rapidly,” he said.
“I suspect we’re going to see a wave of infections with this variant, but I doubt it’s going to cause a big wave probably not even as big as the one we’ve just had in the UK and so probably not that big of a push on health services as recently.’
But he added that a spike in cases in the US in early April, with XBB.1.16 accounting for nearly 6 percent of samples tested, could be a hint of what countries like the UK were in store.
Officials in India believe the variant is single-handedly driving the latest wave.
The country’s health ministry held mock exercises this week to check how prepared hospitals were for a new potential influx of patients.
And some states have brought back face masks in public settings, for the first time in more than a year in some areas.
India’s health ministry said there were 40,215 active cases of Covid as of April 12, up by 3,122 in just one day.
These Covid cases could be those who test positive while feeling unwell at home as well as those who are in hospital.
Separate figures from the Oxford University-run platform Our World in Data show that there were 3,108 new daily cases on April 4, up from 242 a month earlier.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently monitoring Arcturus, known scientifically as XBB.1.16.
It was first discovered in late January and officials said it has some worrying mutations.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Covid technical lead, said: ‘It has been in circulation for a few months.
“We haven’t seen a change in severity in individuals or populations, which is why we put these systems in place.
“It has one additional mutation in the spike protein that shows increased infectivity and possibly increased pathogenicity in lab studies.”
Dr. Van Kerkhove added that while XBB.1.16 had been detected in other countries, most of the sequences came from India, where it had replaced other variants.
She also said that no change in disease severity had been reported in XBB.1.16 infections to date.
Meanwhile, a study by Japanese scientists has suggested that Arcturus is 1.2 times more contagious than the closely related Kraken Covid strain.
Upload their findings to the biological research website bioRxiv, they wrote that this advantage suggests the new variant will “spread globally in the near future.”
They attributed this to mutations that could make it more difficult for the immune system to address and increase the rate of growth.
However, they said there is no evidence that Arcturus was better able to evade vaccine or past infection protections than Kraken.
Squatting was the dominant strain in the UK at the end of February, causing 50.4 per cent of cases, according to ONS data.
Technically XBB.1.5, the Omicron spin-off was considered the most contagious Covid variant to date at the time and caused concern after a spate of cases in several countries.
While the new strain caused more cases, it did not cause more serious illness than its ancestor Omicron, which was already considered a “milder” version of Covid.
The increase in cases caused by Arcturus has led India’s Haryana state, in the north of the country, to reintroduce masks in public places due to the “significant increase” in Covid cases.
Veena George, health minister of the southern state of Kerala, reintroduced masks for pregnant women, the elderly and those with underlying conditions on Saturday.
On Monday and Tuesday, hospitals across India took part in mock drills to test their preparedness.
Analysts from the Office for National Statistics estimated that nearly 1.7 million Britons were carrying the virus on any given day of the week up to March 13. This is an increase of almost 14 percent compared to the previous week
The Office for National Statistics analysis has calculated how much of each Covid wave has infected the population of England. The last, Omicron BA.4/5, was the largest and infected 46.3 percent of the population. Individuals may appear twice in the data, for example having contracted Covid once at the start of the pandemic and then again during the Omicron peak
Officials have also told states to ramp up testing for the virus.
The exercises and the return of masks are a stark reminder of how the country was devastated by the Delta wave in 2021 with a total of 4.7 million additional deaths according to WHO estimates.
India’s health system has been overwhelmed by a spate of cases caused by that Covid variant, with some hospitals even running out of oxygen.
Like similar new Covid variants, virus trackers online decided to name XBB.1.16 ‘Arcturus’ following a pattern of naming new strains after mythological entities.
Arcturus means ‘Guardian of the Bear’ and is related to the constellation Ursa Major.