More than 12 countries have detected Omicron subvariants BA.4 or BA.5, which can help fuel Covid epidemics. But the World Health Organization stated Wednesday that the highly mutated strains still circulate at low levels. 

Less than 700 cases of BA.4 have been detected across at least 16 countries and more than 300 cases of BA.5 have been found across at least 17 countries, WHO’s technical lead on Covid Maria Van Kerkhove said during a Q&A on the organization’s social media platforms. 

Van Kerkhove explained that although the two sublineages aren’t more dangerous than the original micron strain, it is more infectious. The WHO will be monitoring BA.4 as well as BA.5 to find out if the sublineages will overtake BA.2 in the global dominant strains. 

Van Kerhkove stated that “we don’t know what this variant will do, or how the subvariants in countries with a dominant BA.2 wave will perform.” It remains to see what happens next. 

Kerhkove says that the detection rates for these subvariants are particularly high in South Africa. 

According to ACDC, South Africa had reported 395 BA.4 cases and 134 BA.5 cases as of May 6. These are the highest totals of all countries. report Last week, the U.K. Health Security Agency published this information. The actual number of infections is likely to rise because countries don’t sequence the gene data for each Covid case.

The report found that just 36 BA.4 cases were reported from Austria. 24 of these were in the U.K., while 20 were in the United States. 17 BA.4 cases were also recorded in Denmark. According to the report, there were 10 reported cases in Belgium, Israel and Germany of BA.4. 

According to the report, there have been 57 BA.5 cases in Portugal and 52 in Germany. 17 BA.5 infections were reported in the U.K. The report stated that the U.S., France, Austria and Belgium, Hong Kong (Australia, Canada), Israel, Norway. Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland, and France all had less than 10 infections of BA.5 in their countries. 

Although the report acknowledged that there are fewer sequences than expected, the “apparent geographic spread” suggests that this variant is successfully transmitting.

BA.2.12.1 accounted for 42.6%, or about a quarter of the new sequence cases that were filed in the U.S.A during the week ended May 7, according the ToC. data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BA.2 was the predominant subvariant of the country and accounted for 56.4% in all cases. 

According to CDC data, however, BA.2.12.1 wasn’t dominant in New York City, New Jersey, Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. It accounted for 66.3% all new sequenced cases within these states and territories. 

Van Kerkhove indicated that the higher growth rate for BA.2.12.1 than BA.2 will result in an increase of case detection. Van Kerkhove said that BA.2.12.12.1 had not shown any difference in hospitalization rates compared to BA.2. 

She encouraged governments around the globe to be vigilant about BA.2.12.11, BA.4, BA.5 or other possible subvariants. 

Van Kerkhove explained, “We communicate with government constantly about the necessity to maintain surveillance systems so that this can be tracked, we can trace and we can assess in real-time.”