WHO classifies EG.5 as COVID-19 'variant of interest'
The World Health Organization classified the EG.5 coronavirus strain circulating in the United States and China as a "variant of interest" but said it did not seem to pose more of a threat to public health than other variants.
The fast-spreading variant, the most prevalent in the United States with an estimated more than 17 per cent of cases, has been behind upticks in the virus across the country and also has been detected in China, South Korea, Japan and Canada, among other countries.
COVID-19 has killed more than 6.9 million people globally, with more than 768 million confirmed cases since the virus emerged. WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic in March 2020 and ended the global emergency status for COVID-19 in May this year. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said EG.5 had increased transmissibility but was not more severe than other Omicron variants.