Covid-19 in Bulgaria: Omicron strain found in all 47 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 47 samples.
NCIPD said that the samples, taken over a period of time ranging from October 20 to November 6 in 10 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 12 cases or 25.5 per cent of the samples, compared to 44.8 per cent of the samples in the previous batch sequenced by NCIPD, the results of which were announced on November 5.
The remaining samples in the latest dataset were 11 cases of the FY.1.2 subvariant, nine cases of the EG.x lineage, seven cases of the HF.1 subvariant, three cases apiece of the FL.x lineage, two cases each of the GJ.x lineage and the BA.2.86 subvariant, as well as one case of the HV.1 subvariant.
As of November 16, two patients in the NCIPD sample group had died, 10 were in hospital, one was undergoing home treatment and 34 had recovered, NCIPD said.
(Photo: Military Medical Academy)
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