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Coronavirus China
ChinaScience

China is tracking ‘Orthrus’ – an emerging, more transmissible Covid variant

  • China’s CDC says variant, also known as CH. 1.1, unlikely to cause new outbreaks soon
  • US study found CH. 1.1 ‘highly resistant’ to mRNA vaccines

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China’s CDC says the emerging variant CH.1.1 is unlikely to cause another wave of outbreaks in the mainland in the near future. Photo: AP
Hayley Wong

The Omicron subvariant CH. 1.1, also known as “Orthrus”, which is becoming increasingly prevalent in Britain and the United States, is unlikely to cause another wave of outbreaks in the mainland in the near future, Chinese health authorities said.

The most prevalent variants in China continue to be BA. 5.2 and BF. 7, but 24 cases of CH. 1.1, a more transmissible subvariant, have been reported in China in the past three months, authorities said.
“Despite an increased ability to resist immune responses and a higher transmissibility, which might increase breakthrough infection and reinfection risks, the population in China has a high level of neutralising antibodies,” the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement on Tuesday night.

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“There is a certain effect on cross protection [the degree of immunity conferred by previous infections], and it will not cause a large-scale domestic outbreak in the short term,” authorities said in the statement, adding that vulnerable groups including elderly and unvaccinated people should step up protection.

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Orthrus, named after a two-headed dog from Greek mythology that was killed by the hero Heracles, has raised global concern because of a particular mutation that it carries – known as L452R – which experts believe increases the variant’s immunity to current vaccines, similar to the mutation in the earlier Delta variant.

However, the CDC said that the same mutation found in CH. 1.1 is also present in other subvariants like BA. 5.3 and BA. 5.1.3, and it is still unclear if the lineage could cause more severe symptoms of the disease.

The first case of CH. 1.1 in China was detected in November in the city of Tianjin, near Beijing, and was imported from Thailand, according to authorities.

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