What is the prevalence of the KP.2 variant in China? Zhang Wenhong: There's no need to worry too much

Sina Financial News From a global perspective, a new crown variant named KP.2 is spreading. Since February, the World Health Organization listed KP.2 as a “variant requiring surveillance” on May 3 due to the rapid rise in the proportion of KP.2 in the global circulating strain. Zhang Wenhong said that the current surveillance data suggest that the current epidemic of the new coronavirus in China is still dominated by Omicron JN.1, and the current international epidemic has focused on the offspring subtype KP.2 of JN.1, and as of May 12, a total of 25 KP.2 sequences have been monitored in local cases in China. The proportion of KP.2 in the local sequences reported weekly was between 0.05%~0.30%, which was still at a very low level. Although there is still a possibility that the proportion of this subtype will increase in the future, although this subtype has been detected internationally since March this year, the US CDC surveillance shows that as of May 11, KP.2 accounted for rise to 28.2%, but in terms of the number of emergency visits, hospitalizations and deaths, there is no obvious rise in the trend of the number of people, so it can be judged that the actual clinical risk of KP.2 follow-up is limited. In the future, we will continue to strengthen the surveillance of the new crown and other respiratory pathogens, and the emergence of new virus subtypes will be the norm, so there is no need to be overly concerned.