COVID-19: WHO on alert over new omicron subvariants

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that it is monitoring a few dozen cases of two new subvariants of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The WHO has added BA.4 and BA.5, siblings of the original BA.1 omicron variant, to its list for assessment to ascertain if they are more infectious or life-threatening. The WHO is already analyzing BA.1 and BA.2 as well as BA.1.1 and BA.3.

The UN healthy body said it had begun tracking them because of their "additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential."