​The EU disease control agency has good news and bad news when it comes to XBB.1.5, a sub-variant of the coronavirus nicknamed the Kraken that is wreaking havoc in America and keeping epidemiologists up at night. The bad news is that the Kraken is spreading quickly, but the good news is that it will take some time to reach Europe, Politico reported.

The XBB.1.5 coronavirus subvariant is spreading faster than the currently dominant Omicron strains, most likely because it has several important advantages over the currently dominant Omicron strains, according to the EU Disease Control Agency.

“It is likely that this variant will have an increasing impact on the number of COVID-19 cases in the EU, but not in the next month, as the variant is present in the EU at very low levels,” the European Center writes. for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in a recent assessment of XBB.1.5, News.ro reports.

On Wednesday, WHO chief Maria Van Kerkhoeve said the EU health agency is concerned about how quickly the Kraken sub-variant is replacing other variants in circulation. In the US, the number of sequenced cases has increased from 4% to 40% in a matter of weeks, according to the White House’s COVID-19 coordinator.

However, it is not yet known whether it causes a more serious infection.

ECDC writes that the high rate of spread is likely caused by XBB.1.5’s ability to evade the immune system’s defenses against previous infections or vaccinations. It also has a mutation in its protein – the part of the virus that binds to host cells – that may give it some advantage.

Currently, the subvariant is only a red flag in Europe in terms of the number of cases, the ECDC said, although it has been detected in Denmark, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Belgium. , the Czech Republic, Portugal and Ireland.

US data suggest that XBB.1.5 is spreading aggressively, with cases doubling every nine days.

The danger is that the spike in cases coincides with an already tough flu season, straining hospitals. In Belgium, health authorities have declared a flu epidemic due to an increase in cases of the disease, the peak of which is expected in three to four weeks.