Ireland’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has reported a significant surge in confirmed cases of the new JN.1 Covid variant.
Last Wednesday, 381 cases of the strain were confirmed and yesterday, the HPSC stated that the known infections have increased by 217 to 598, reports The Mirror.
This marks a 56.96% increase in just a week.
The HPSC said: “Since November 2023, the BA.2.86 sublineage JN.1 has rapidly increased and is replacing XBB.1.5-like lineages. JN.1, has been increasing globally in recent weeks and was made a Variant of Interest by the WHO on December 19, 2023 due to this rapid rise. The WHO risk evaluation on limited data to date indicates that while there are likely to be increases in case numbers, there is no indication of additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating lineages or increased disease severity,” reports The Mirror.
“There have been 598 Covid cases confirmed as infected with the JN.1 lineage to date in Ireland. Of these cases, 172 (28.8%) were associated with outbreaks in hospital or healthcare settings,” reports The Mirror.
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