The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was tracking a new, highly mutated lineage of the virus that causes Covid-19.
The lineage is named BA.2.86, and has been detected in the United States, Denmark and Israel, the CDC said in a post on X. "As we learn more about BA.2.86, CDC's advice on protecting yourself from Covid-19 remains the same," the agency said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) earlier said in a post on X that it had classified BA.2.86 as a "variant under monitoring" due to the large number of mutations it carries.
The WHO said that, so far, only a few sequences of the variant have been reported from a handful of countries. The new lineage, which has 36 mutations from the currently-dominant XBB.1.5 Covid variant "harkens back to an earlier branch" of the virus, explained Dr.