WHO classifies JN.1 as 'variant of interest' as Covid cases surge  

Amid a spike in Covid cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the JN.1 coronavirus strain as a "variant of interest", Reuters reported on Tuesday. "Based on the available evidence, the additional global public health risk posed by JN.1 is currently evaluated as low," WHO said.

JN.1 was previously classified as a variant of interest as a part of its parent lineage BA.2.86.

JN.1 is driving new COVID cases in some countries like Singapore. Last week, Singapore recorded a sharp jump in Covid cases to 56,043 in the first week of December 2023. Singapore's Health Ministry said that cases infected by JN.1, a sublineage of BA.2.86, accounted for the vast majority of the Covid cases detected in the country.

The island country, however, said that there was currently no clear indication that BA.2.86 or JN.1 were more transmissible or cause more severe disease than other circulating variants.

Meanwhile, India has recorded one case of JN.1 in Kerala. The Centre on Monday issued an advisory to all the states and the union territories in view of a recent upsurge in infection cases and the detection of the first case of the JN.1 variant. 

The central government asked all the states to monitor and report District-wise Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis including in the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) portal.

The states were also advised to ensure adequate testing in all the districts and maintain the recommended share of RT-PCR and Antigen tests. The Centre also advised the states to increase number of RT-PCR tests and send positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories.

Kerala reported 115 fresh Covid infections in the last 24 hours taking the total active cases of the virus in the state to 1,749. The 115 cases in Kerala were out of the 142 reported from across the country till 8 am on Tuesday. No deaths due to the virus were reported from the state in the last 24 hours.