A new strain of Covid-19 named Centaurus has been found in the Netherlands, the latest country to find the new subvariant of Omicron, which was assumed to be one of the most contagious yet.
The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment reported the BA.2.75 strain of coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 on Wednesday, July 13.
It was recorded in a sample taken from an individual in the region of Noordoost-Gelderland on Sunday, June 26.
The subvariant of the Omicron BA.2 lineage has also been found in other nations like Australia, India, Japan, the US, Canada, Germany and the UK.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has recorded BA.2.75 as a variant which is under observation. Still, there is no such evidence to suggest it has more potential to cause severe disease.
Researchers in the Netherlands stated that the variant is assumed to be more contagious than the last forms of the virus, as it persists in mutating to evade immunity that has been developed in people since COVID-19 first broke out in 2020.
So far, Omicron has had a total of five sub-variants that are being observed closely.
Many nations have recorded a recent rise in subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, with the latter evolving as the most dominant, as per pathogen surveillance.
With every new wave of COVID-19 variants, populations mainly have built more robust protection through recent infection, widespread vaccinations or both of them.
During its recent COVID-19 emergency committee briefing on Tuesday, July 12, the WHO stated that the reported cases raised by 30% over the last two weeks.
They were caused mainly due to Omicron BA.4, BA.5 and other descendant families and the lifting of public health and social criteria.
Restaurants reopened in April this year in the Netherlands after several months of closure because of Covid restrictions. Dutch health officials have now again detected the Centaurus variant in the country’s centre.