Covid-19 in Bulgaria: Omicron strain found in all 67 samples – NCIPD
Bulgaria’s National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (NCIPD) said that it has completed the sequencing of the latest group of samples taken from Covid-19 patients in the country, finding the Omicron coronavirus strain in all 67 samples.
NCIPD said that the samples, taken over a period of time ranging from September 29 to October 25 in 14 out of Bulgaria’s 28 districts, showed that the XBB.1.5 lineage and related subvariants, which NCIPD collectively referred to as XBB.x, remained the most frequently-encountered lineage.
XBB.1.5 is a sub-lineage of XBB, which evolved from two earlier lineages of Omicron, with an additional spike change, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
ECDC has currently designated XBB and certain XBB.1.5-like sublineages (such as EG.5 and XBB.1.16.6) as variants of interest and XBB.1.16 as a variant under monitoring.
NCIPD’s latest sequencing dataset showed the XBB.x lineage was present in 30 cases or 44.8 per cent of the samples, compared to 35.2 per cent of the samples in the previous batch sequenced by NCIPD, the results of which were announced on October 25.
The remaining samples in the latest dataset were 14 cases of the FY.x lineage, nine cases of the EG.x lineage, six cases of the HF.1 subvariant, two cases each of the FL.1.5, GE.1 and JN.1 subvariants, and one case apiece of the HK.3 and HV.1 subvariants.
As of October 30, five patients in the NCIPD sample group had died, seven were in hospital, 10 were undergoing home treatment and 45 had recovered, NCIPD said.
(Photo: Military Medical Academy)
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