Beijing
\nAn explosion of COVID-19 cases in China as the country lifts its zero-COVID measures could create a \u201cpotential breeding ground\u201d for new variants to emerge, health experts warn.
\nChina announced this week that incoming travellers would no longer have to quarantine from January 8, the latest major reversal of strict restrictions that have kept the country largely closed off to the world since the start of the pandemic.
\nWhile the country\u2019s National Health Commission has stopped issuing daily case numbers, officials in several cities estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have been infected in recent weeks. Hospitals and crematoriums have been overwhelmed across the country.
\nWith the virus now able to circulate among nearly one-fifth of the world\u2019s population \u2014 almost all of whom lack immunity from previous infection and many of whom remain unvaccinated \u2014 other nations and experts fear China will become fertile ground for new variants.
\nAntoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP that each new infection increased the chance the virus would mutate.
\n\u201cThe fact that 1.4 billion people are suddenly exposed to SARS-CoV-2 obviously creates conditions prone to emerging variants,\u201d Flahault said, referring to the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
\nBruno Lina, a virology professor at France\u2019s Lyon University, told the La Croix newspaper this week that China could become a \u201cpotential breeding ground for the virus\u201d.
\nSoumya Swaminathan, who served as the World Health Organization\u2019s chief scientist until November, said a large part of the Chinese population was vulnerable to infection in part because many elderly people had not been vaccinated or boosted.
\n\u201cWe need to keep a close watch on any emerging concerning variants,\u201d she told the website of the Indian Express newspaper.
\nCountries test Chinese travellers
\nIn response to the surging cases, the United States, Italy, Japan, India and Malaysia announced this week they would increase health measures for travellers from China.
\nThe lack of transparent data from China \u2014 particularly about viral genomic sequencing \u2014 is making it \u201cincreasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread\u201d, US officials said Tuesday.
\nIndia and Japan have already said they will impose mandatory PCR testing on all passengers from China, a measure Flahault said could be a way around any delays in information from Beijing.
\n\u201cIf we succeed to sample and sequence all viruses identified from any travellers coming in from China, we will know almost as soon as new variants emerge and spread\u201d in the country, he said.
\nVariant \u2018soup\u2019
\nXu Wenbo, head of the virus control institute at China\u2019s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that hospitals across the country would collect samples from patients and upload the sequencing information to a new national database, allowing authorities to monitor possible new strains in real-time.
\nMore than 130 Omicron sublineages have been newly detected in China over the last three months, he told journalists.
\nAmong those were XXB and BQ.1 and their sublineages, which have been spreading in the US and parts of Europe in recent months as a swarm of subvariants has competed for dominance worldwide.
\nHowever BA.5.2 and BF.7 remain the main Omicron strains detected in China, Xu said, adding that the varying sublineages would likely circulate together.
\nFlahault said \u201ca soup\u201d of more than 500 new Omicron subvariants had been identified in recent months, although it had often been difficult to tell where each had first emerged.
\n\u201cAny variants, when more transmissible than the previous dominant ones \u2014 such as BQ.1, B2.75.2, XBB, CH.1, or BF.7 \u2014 definitely represent threats, since they can cause new waves,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cHowever, none of these known variants seems to exhibit any particular new risks of more severe symptoms to our knowledge, although that might happen with new variants in the coming future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beijing An explosion of COVID-19 cases in China as the country lifts its zero-COVID measures could create a \u201cpotential breeding ground\u201d for new variants to emerge, health experts warn. China announced this week that incoming travellers would no longer have to quarantine from January 8, the latest major reversal of strict restrictions that have kept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-304469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n