State: Covid-19 variant in US 'not alarming'

Health CS Aden Duale presides over the Kenya National Health Institute policy launch and Africa CDC partnership signing. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

The Ministry of Health has maintained that the current COVID-19 variant spreading in the US warrants attention, but it is not alarming.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale says the sub-variant BA.3.2 (“Cicada”), though detected in multiple jurisdictions, particularly in the US, remains a low-prevalence lineage and is currently designated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a variant under monitoring.

“There is no conclusive evidence of increased severity or significant epidemiological impact,” Duale told The Standard.

The CS emphasises that, from a Kenyan public health perspective, the emergence of BA.3.2 should be treated as a signal for enhanced vigilance rather than emergency response. 

The primary risk lies in its potential immune escape characteristics, which could affect transmission dynamics.

“Given the absence of clear evidence of increased clinical severity, drastic interventions are not justified at this stage,” said the CS.

The BA.3.2 variant is spreading rapidly, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). COVID-19 is a respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which continues to evolve through mutations.

According to the CDC, the highly divergent SARS-CoV-2 variant BA.3.2 was first detected in a respiratory sample collected on November 22, 2024, in South Africa. Since then, it has spread across multiple regions.

As of February 11, 2026, the variant had been reported in at least 23 countries, with detections increasing significantly from September 2025.

The lineage has since been identified across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania.

“The number of reported detections has increased since September 2025. However, because many countries have limited genomic detection and surveillance capacities, the detections likely under-represent the actual geographic extent of spread,” adds CDC.

Nevertheless, the ministry is strengthening syndromic and sentinel surveillance for severe respiratory illness, expanding genomic sequencing capacity to detect emerging variants, maintaining readiness of clinical care systems, and ensuring continued access to vaccination and therapeutics for high-risk populations.

The measures, according to Duale, align with Kenya’s broader health security framework and support early detection without imposing undue societal or economic disruption.

Meanwhile, scientists are working around the clock to establish whether the new Covid-19 variant spreading in the U.S. could lead to severe disease. 

Julius Oyugi, the director of research at the University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases, told The Standard that though there is no evidence the variant can cause severe disease, those found with the disease in the US have comorbidities and chronic diseases. 

Scientists, Prof Oyugi noted, are monitoring the variant in the populations with severe disease among individuals with comorbidity and chronic diseases. 

“There is fear about the COVID-19 variant. But there is no evidence of associating it with severe disease,” said Oyugi. 

The main worry with the variant, according to the researcher, is that the current vaccines do not offer protection against it. 

This, therefore, means if it is found to be severe, there will be a need to get vaccines to stop its chain of transmission. 

Additionally, unlike other previous variants, the newly discovered one has more mutations.

Unlike omicron, which had approximately 30 mutations, B.A.3.2 has 70 to 75. All viruses, according to the CDC, change over time, and the type of virus that causes COVID-19 does so especially quickly.