The European Union's (EU) health agency, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), has published a risk assessment for Omicron's XBB.1.5 sub-variant named "Kraken".
The ECDC, which has set the overall risk level of Kraken for European countries as "low" for the general population, noted that the risk posed by this subvariable is "moderate to high" for the elderly, the unvaccinated and the immunocompromised.
ECDC: 'This Assessment May Change Any Time.'
Underlining that this assessment may change in the coming weeks, ECDC shared its prediction that this sub-variant will become dominant in the EU within 1-2 months.
"At this time, there is no indication that the infection severity of XBB.1.5 differs from the previously distributed Omicron sublineages."
In the last two weeks of 2022, it was reported that the rate of XBB.1.5 among coronaviruses in Europe was 2.5 percent, while in the USA it spread 12 percent faster than existing variants.