A new COVID-19 variant called XEC is on the rise, and it has experts who track variants on alert.
Each time a new variant makes a grand entrance onto tracker lists, health officials take notice because it may mean there’s an important change in behavior of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
Countries reporting rising detections of XEC include Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, Australian data scientist Mike Honey posted on the platform X this past week.
XEC’s “characteristic mutations” have been detected in at least 25 states, CBS News reported, with New Jersey, California, and Virginia labs reporting 10 or more cases each. New Jersey detections at least in part stem from the CDC’s testing program for international travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Still, XEC hasn’t gained enough traction in Europe, the United States, or any other part of the world for it to be listed as a standalone variant on official watchlists maintained by the CDC, European Union, or World Health Organization.
However, Eric Topol, MD, executive vice president of Scripps Research and editor-at-large for Medscape, believes XEC is the next variant “to get legs.”
The rate at which a new variant takes the stage doesn’t always predict how severe it will be. Around this time last year, health officials sounded alarms about another Omicron variant called BA.2.86, dubbed Pirola, that ultimately didn’t make major waves.
“CDC is not aware of any specific symptoms associated with XEC or any other co-circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineage,” a CDC spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
Its parent lineages are KP.2 and KP.3, and all of these belong to the Omicron family. The SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates over time, and scientists use the names and labels to identify groups of viral variants based on their similarities and on which strains a mutated descendant came from.
A version of this article appeared on WebMD.com.