{"id":659,"date":"2023-03-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/22-03-2023\/xbb-1-16\/"},"modified":"2023-03-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T00:00:00","slug":"xbb-1-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/22-03-2023\/xbb-1-16","title":{"rendered":"XBB.1.16"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>In News<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Recently, XBB.1.16 was found to be the variant behind India\u2019s new COVID spike.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>About<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Two recombinant lineages of SARS-CoV-2 are currently designated as \u2018Variants Under Monitoring\u2019 by the World Health Organization: XBB, a recombinant of Omicron sublineages BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75, and XBF, a recombinant of BA.5.2.3 and BA.2.75.3 Omicron sublineages.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The lineage XBB.1.5, a sublineage of the XBB has functional advantages over currently circulating variants <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>such as increased transmissibility in populations with prior immunity to the virus.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Based on preliminary data, there is<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> no evidence to suggest that infections with the XBB.1.16 lineage differ in clinical severity<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> from those caused by other Omicron lineages.It however <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>has a higher risk of reinfection compared<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> to other circulating Omicron lineages.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Why are viruses Prone to Mutation?<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Most of the viruses are made up of single strands or RNA. due to the lack of complementary pairing in the strands and RNA being more unstable than DNA leads to higher chances of mutation among viruses.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>WHO Nomenclature:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Variant Under Monitoring (VUM):<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> It is defined as A SARS-CoV-2 variant with genetic changes that are suspected to affect virus characteristics and\u00a0 shows growth advantage relative to other circulating variants (e.g. growth advantage which can occur globally or in only one WHO region). Evidence of phenotypic impact of these variants is unclear and requires enhanced monitoring and reassessment .<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Variant of Interest (VOI) : <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A SARS-CoV-2 variant with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, virulence, antibody evasion, susceptibility to\u00a0 therapeutics and detectability;<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">VOI are identified to have a growth advantage over other circulating variants in more than one\u00a0 WHO region with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Variant of Concern (VOC) : <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A SARS-CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above) and, through a risk assessment, conducted by WHO TAG-VE, and determined to be associated with a moderate or high level of confidence, meets at least one of the following criteria when compared with other variants:<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Detrimental change in clinical disease severity; OR<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Change in COVID-19 epidemiology causing substantial impact on the ability of health systems to provide care to patients with COVID-19 or other illnesses and therefore requiring major public health interventions; OR<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Significant decrease in the effectiveness of available vaccines in protecting against severe disease.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/xbb-1-16-omicron-recombinant-india-covid-surge-insacog\/article66646125.ece\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><strong><u><a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1901882\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u> <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/xbb-1-16-omicron-recombinant-india-covid-surge-insacog\/article66646125.ece\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u>TH<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News Recently, XBB.1.16 was found to be the variant behind India\u2019s new COVID spike. About Two recombinant lineages of SARS-CoV-2 are currently designated as \u2018Variants Under Monitoring\u2019 by the World Health Organization: XBB, a recombinant of Omicron sublineages BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75, and XBF, a recombinant of BA.5.2.3 and BA.2.75.3 Omicron sublineages. The lineage XBB.1.5, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[30,26,47,33],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-2","tag-gs-3","tag-health","tag-science-technology"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4395075Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}