Five people have died in England after contracting the new Arcturus strain of Covid which is rapidly spreading across the world.
The latest official monthly briefing on Covid variants states 105 Covid patients were confirmed to be infected with the strain as of April 17 in England, of whom five had died.
The true number of cases and deaths from Arcturus is likely to be higher as doctors do not send samples from all patients to be tested for specific variants.
The new strain, which is known to scientists as sub-variant XBB.1.16 but has been dubbed Arcturus, was placed on the World Health Organisation’s watchlist last month after rapidly spreading in Asia.
It’s thought to be dominating the current wave of 65,000 ongoing cases in India.
Hundreds of confirmed Arcturus cases across at least 29 countries including the US, Australia and Thailand, where the first known death was reported last week.
Research from the University of Tokyo suggests it is 20% more infectious than the Omicron variant which dominated the last major wave of cases.
Scientists say there are so far no signs it is more dangerous or resistant to vaccines than previous variants, but stressed there have not yet been enough cases to draw firm conclusions.
Data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests it makes up just over 2% of cases in Britain as of last week.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid technical lead, said last month: ‘It’s been in circulation for a few months.
‘We haven’t seen a change in severity in individuals or in populations, but that’s why we have these systems in place.
‘It has one additional mutation in the spike protein which in lab studies shows increased infectivity as well as potential increased pathogenicity.’
Of the known cases in England, slightly more were among males than females, and the median age is 74.
A total of 135 samples from around the UK have been identified as the new strain, most but not all of which come from different patients.
As well as 120 from England, 8 are from Wales, 5 from Scotland and 2 from Northern Ireland.
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