India doing fine, do not expect surge in cases due to Omicron's sub-variants XBB, BF.7, says Gagandeep Kang

"This is a public health function where stable surveillance runs in the background and ramps up for emerging threats," the virologist said.

Renowned virologist Gagandeep Kang on December 23, 2022 said India has reported a few cases of Omicron sub-variants XBB and BF.7, but they have not driven an upsurge, and she does not expect a spike in COVID cases.

Her remarks come in the backdrop on the highly transmissible Omicron strains, mostly BF.7, causing a spike in coronavirus cases in many countries, including China. "They are, like all Omicron sub-variants, very good at infecting people because they escape the immune response that prevents infection, but are not causing more severe disease than Delta," the professor at the Christian Medical College's division of gastrointestinal sciences tweeted.

Ms. Kang said that "at the moment, India is doing fine" but maintained that surveillance should be ensured to "detect signal of any changes in the behaviour of the virus". BF.7 is a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA.5 and has the strongest infection ability since it is highly transmissible, has a shorter incubation period and has a higher capacity to cause reinfection or infect even those vaccinated.

China is opening up fast at a time when their population has low levels of exposure to natural infection, she said, adding that "the current circulating variants are Omicron, which have evolved in vaccinated populations and are therefore very infectious".

Ms. Kang said most of China's population has received two doses of vaccines.

"Most infections can be managed at home, but sheer numbers mean that even a small proportion getting severely ill, means that many people will have severe disease and that a proportion of those will die," she said in another tweet.

"At the moment, India is doing fine. We have few cases, we have had the XBB and BF.7 for a while and they have not driven an upsurge in India. In the absence of an even more highly infectious variant, I do not expect a surge," the virologist tweeted.