The first recorded death of someone who has the new Arcturus strain of Covid-19 has been revealed. This variant has been described as the most transmissible yet and has a symptom which has not before been associated with Covid-19.
It has spread quickly across India and the USA, being detected in a total of 29 countries so far. The first known victim is unnamed elderly man from Thailand, Dr Supakit Sirilak, director-general of the Medical Sciences Department said.
He said that 27 cases had been detected and that the deceased was “an elderly foreigner” with underlying health conditions. He continued: “His death, therefore, may not directly reflect the severity of this subvariant but rather its impact on other risk factors.”
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Arcturus, which is a subvariant of Omicron, was first seen in India and has been on the World Health Organisation’s watchlist since the end of March. Reports from doctors in India, where the strain is rife, have said they are seeing more children and adolescents with the variant presenting with conjunctivitis - or pink eye.
Indian paediatrician Vipn Vashishtha, also a member of the WHO’s Vaccine Safety Net programme, said at the start of April that he had seen paediatric coronavirus Covid cases rise “once again after a gap” of six months. Prof Dr Yong Poovorawan, who heads the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, said Arcturus will inevitably become Thailand’s dominant subvariant soon.
Between April 9 and 15, the number of patients hospitalised with the virus was up two and a half times from the previous week in Thailand. The subvariant is skyrocketing infections in India and has prompted health officials to reintroduce mandatory mask-wearing among other measures.
The new variant is reportedly 1.2 times more infectious than the Omicron variant, according to a study by the University of Tokyo.
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