The World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have announced another addition to their lists tracking variants of COVID-19 — and this one may be a little different.
Described by the CDC as a new lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19, the mutation has some distinctions from other currently circulating variants.
BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, was added to the CDC watch list on Thursday, following its addition to the WHO’ SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring list, garnering attention despite the small number of officially reported cases. Though there were only seven confirmed cases reported by the CDC as of August 19, the virus has been detected in multiple countries on multiple continents, including the United States, Denmark, Israel and the U.K.
Pirola is a nickname given to BA.2.86, a new lineage of virus that causes COVID-19.
Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan, Assistant Dean of Research and Associate Professor at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, said that BA.2.86, in simpler terms, is one of the 1,680 omicron lineages.