Experts urge more testing as new COVID-19 variant emerges
With another COVID-19 ‘variant of interest’, the World Health Organization is warning countries around the world not to dismantle their surveillance measures. The health body says the new variant EG5 is a mutation of Omicron and is similar in its effects.
Transcript
00:00 The World Health Organization is warning countries around the world not to dismantle their surveillance measures of COVID-19.
00:07 The health body says a new variant, EG5, a mutation of Omicron, is circulating and has similar effects.
00:14 The variant has been reported in 51 countries including China, Korea, Japan and Canada.
00:19 You know, the gains that they made across all of these aspects, surveillance, clinical care, infection prevention control, everything that they did for COVID-19 is an investment for the future. So dismantling those systems is really short-sighted.
00:33 The WHO has been monitoring EG5 since July and has seen an increased growth rate.
00:39 An extreme summer heat means more people are likely to be in their homes in the northern hemisphere and take refuge summer cool.
00:46 In winter months, you know, people spend more time indoors but in the summer people are spending more time indoors because of air conditioning. This virus will take advantage.
00:54 With the virus not showing to be as seasonal as in the past, the WHO is urging everyone to be up to date with their booster jabs, which they say will be modified to tackle new mutations.
01:05 (whooshing)