WHO warned of the risk of the spread of a new strain of COVID-19

On October 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of the increasing risk of the spread of a new variant of coronavirus PJ.2.1.

"Since its first detection in May 2026, this variant has spread across several continents," the WHO's Russian office told RIA Novosti.

The WHO explained that the likelihood of the variant entering new countries increases against the background of international travel and the movement of people across state borders. At the same time, the published clinical data do not yet indicate that infection with PJ.2.1 leads to a more severe course of the disease compared to other recently identified variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Thus, the organization's warning is related to the expansion of the geographical spread of the virus. There is currently no evidence of increased severity of the disease caused by it.

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And is the new subtype of omicron able to influence the seasonal increase in morbidity?

On October 27, the press service of Rospotrebnadzor reported that no new strain of coronavirus had been detected in Russia. For the first time, the PJ option.2.1, belonging to the Omicron evolutionary lineage, was identified in early May in Canada. Later it was discovered in the USA, Spain, Australia and Singapore.

The main feature of the new variant is the increased ability of the virus protein to bind to human cell receptors, which may contribute to more intensive disease transmission.