The World Health Organisation announced its tracking a new Covid-19 variant with a "large number of mutations" found in countries across multiple continents.
The BA.2.86 variant was first spotted by scientists in Israel on Sunday.
Since then, Denmark has reported three cases, with two more being reported in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
It's being monitored due to its large number of mutations — over 30 compared to its next closest ancestor, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.
"This makes it an evolutionary jump comparable in size to that which originally gave rise to Omicron," said Dr Jesse Bloom, who studies viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre.
These mutations include changes that could help it better avoid immunity from prior infections or vaccinations.
"Deep mutational scanning indicates BA.2.86 variant will have equal or greater escape than XBB.1.5 from antibodies elicited by pre-Omicron and first-generation Omicron variants."
Epidemiologist Dr Eric Feigl-Ding said that the fact six samples have popped up within four days of identifying the first sample in Israel indicates that its likely already more widespread.
It is too early to say if the variant will be more dangerous than strains of the virus currently circulating.
WHO said more data is needed to understand BA.2.86 and the threat it may pose, but that they accelerated the classification due to the number of mutations.
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