Anew Covid subvariant is under the radar of the World Health Organization (WHO) and is also causing concern in India. This Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.16, dubbed as Arcturus has caused a surge in new cases in India in the last few weeks. Indian central government has asked people not to panic as they have made all the preparations and conducted mock drills in hospitals as a refresher course for doctors to help Covid patients. Cases linked to this variant are also rising in Singapore, the US and Australia among others.
Arcturus has been reported in several states in the US, including California, Washington, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Texas, a tracker run by Rajendram Rajnarayanan, MSc, PhD, of the New York Institute of Technology shows.
Actrurus subvariant may be 1.2 times more infectious than the Kraken strain
The XBB.1.16 subvariant is a combination of two subvariants of the Omicron variant. A University of Tokyo preprint study also suggested the subvariant spreads around 1.17 to 1.27 times more efficiently than the XBB.1 and XBB.1.5 or Kraken subvariants. “We first show that XBB.1.16 had an effective reproductive number (Re) that was 1.27- and 1.17-fold higher than the parental XBB.1 and XBB.1.5, respectively, suggesting that XBB.1.16 will spread worldwide in the near future,” the preprint study read.
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The name Arcturus has been popularised by the former Indian Academy of Paediatrics Committee on Immunisation convenor Vipin M Vashishtha. He used it as a hashtag in a tweet in March to warn about the rising COVID-19 cases.
He said in a tweet, “All eyes should be on India! If XBB.1.16 aka Arcturus could succeed to wade through the ‘sturdy’ population immunity of Indians that successfully resisted the onslaught of variants like BA.285, BA.5, BQs, XBB.1.5, then the whole world must be seriously worried!”
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Symptoms of COVID-19 subvariant Arcturus
Symptoms of this subvariant in children are:
1. High fever
2. Cough
3. Itchy conjunctivitis or pink eye without pus but with sticky eyes
4. Nasal discharge
Pediatrician Dr Rahul Nagpal told India Today that doctors have seen rising COVID-19 cases in children with conjunctivitis. He added, “Usually, these children come with simple respiratory infections of cough, cold, and fever, and when tested they turn out to be positive.”
