Ukraine has reported five cases of FLiRT, a newly identified subtype of the Omicron coronavirus variant that may be driving the current surge in infections across the country

The discovery of FLiRT was confirmed by Ihor Kuzin, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health and Chief State Sanitary Doctor, during a briefing at the Media Center Ukraine.

Kuzin noted that several countries experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases have also identified FLiRT as a new Omicron subvariant. “In Ukraine, sequencing has revealed five positive samples of FLiRT, indicating its presence in the country,” Kuzin said.

He stated that the detection of only five cases of the new FLiRT strain doesn’t rule out the possibility that this subvariant is behind the majority of infections, which saw a significant rise last month.

“There are ten Omicron subvariants circulating in Ukraine. Naturally, we don’t sequence 100% of samples from all patients. Given the high cost of such studies, we focus on individual cases from various regions for sequencing. The identification of only five FLiRT subtype cases doesn’t necessarily indicate limited circulation. It’s plausible that the majority of infections in this epidemic wave are driven by the FLiRT strain. These findings merely represent what has entered our surveillance system and been sequenced. Additionally, among the other ten subtypes, various subpopulations of the virus are circulating, all stemming from a significant Omicron mutation,” he explained. 

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news