Russia Detects No Cases of Kraken Omicron Strain

 / Go to the mediabankParamedic near a hospital for patients with suspected coronavirus infection in Kommunarka, Moscow, Russia. / Go to the mediabankMOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Saturday that the Kraken new Omicron strain has not been detected in Russia, with the situation being closely monitored by the country’s health care authorities. “As of January 6, 2023, the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, Kraken, was not detected,” the watchdog said in a statement. The World Health Organization said that the new subvariant was unlikely to cause special severity of the disease, but it was more contagious than those previous variants. In Russia, Omicron has been the dominant strain, as the proportion of BA.2 and BA.5 variants increased from 1.9% to 23.9% and from 66.7% to 96.5%, respectively, over the past weeks, Rospotrebnadzor added.

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