Covid-19 cases rise in India: Existing vaccines protect against JN.1 sub-variant? What expert says
JN.1 is a descendant of the "pirola" variant BA 2.86, which by itself is an Omicron subvariant. JN.1 has an additional mutation receptor binding domain (L455S) compared to BA 2.86. JN.1 has extensive resistance across receptor binding domain classes 1, 2, and 3 and shows higher immune evasion as compared with BA 2.86 and other resistant strains.
The World Health Organization has classified JN.1 as a variant of interest. In the wake of surging COVID-19 cases in the country, a major question that arises is whether the vaccination administered before will be effective now. In an interaction with Livemint, Dr.
Gurmeet Singh Chabbra, Director-Pulmonary, Marengo Asia Hospitals Faridabad said that according to CDC, vaccines will not block completely JN.1 infections, they should reduce likely hood of severe illness and hospitalisation. “Data from Singapore shows that those who received their last vaccine dose less than 1 year ago were less likely to develop severe disease as compared to those who received it more than a year ago," Dr. Gurmeet Singh Chabbra said.
As per Dr. Gurmeet Singh Chabbra, those who received covid vaccine more than a year ago were 1.6-fold more likely to need hospitalisation. “Most vaccines available in INDIA were developed against the ancestral variant of SARs- cov-2 and have only been tested against initial Omicron variants and were found effective," he said.
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