Once again a sudden rise in Covid-19 cases has been witnessed across the Asian continent over the past few weeks. Significant count of it has been reported in Singapore and Hong Kong. Health authorities in Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Singapore, etc have urged people to take the new booster vaccinations.
Fresh cases reported in India
There have been 2 deaths in Maharashtra since January and 182 new cases have been reported in Kerala in May. Patients with mild symptoms are being treated in both states and people have been advised to remain cautious.
As per State Health Department both the deaths were from Mumbai and both the patients already had other diseases. When a person has two or more diseases simultaneously, it is called comorbidity. According to information provided by the department, one patient had hypocalcaemia (attack caused by lack of calcium in the body) along with nephritic syndrome (kidney disease), while the other patient was suffering from cancer.
The health department said that a total of 6,066 people’s ‘swab samples’ were tested since January, out of which 106 people were confirmed to have corona virus infection. Of these, 101 cases are from Mumbai, the rest are from Pune, Thane and Kolhapur.
Presently, 52 patients were undergoing treatment with mild symptoms, while 16 patients had been hospitalized. It was not only Maharashtra, but also other states of the country and many countries are seeing an increase in corona virus cases.
182 cases of corona in Kerala
A total of 182 corona cases have been reported in Kerala so far in this month of May. State Health Minister Veena George said on Wednesday that the highest number of cases had been found in Kottayam district (57 cases), while 34 cases had been registered in Ernakulam and 30 in Thiruvananthapuram.
George said that as corona cases were increasing in South-East Asian countries, there may be an increase in cases in Kerala as well. Therefore, people should be cautious. She said that Omicron JN.1, LF.7 and NB 1.8 variants were spreading in these countries. They can spread quickly, but the disease is not as severe, she added.
What is JN.1?
The JN.1 strain is a descendant of the BA.2.86 variant (an Omicron sub-variant). The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the JN.1 strain as a ‘variant of interest’ and not a ‘variant of concern’ yet. WHO has also mentioned that the global public health risk posed by JN.1 is low.
