Skopje, 11 January 2023 (MIA) – Kraken, the ‘most transmissible’ COVID variant yet, hasn’t been recorded in North Macedonia so far and there’s no room for panic, says doctor Aleksandar Petlichkovski, head of the Commission for Infectious Diseases.

“The last sequencing of positive Covid samples was done on December 5 and the Kraken variant wasn’t detected in that round of sequencing. There’s no information when the next one would be. A new round of sequencing will be done perhaps in the next several days,” Petlichkovski tells MIA.

He says the very contagious variant is not expected to radically change the epidemiological situation given the data available from the United States and Europe.

“It is slightly more contagious than the previous ones. Like all new variants that have broken out in the past several months, they become less contagious and do not cause serious symptoms. So, we don’t expect anything radical,” the doctor states.

Petlichkovski adds that the Commission for Infectious Diseases will meet next Wednesday to review the situation.

On the ground, he says, hospital reports suggest that the situation is stable. A total of 30 people were hospitalized last week, no one was put on a ventilator and two deaths were registered. “The situation is stable for the past three-four weeks. There’s absolutely no room for panic,” the doctor says.

Omicron, the dominant variant of the coronavirus, evolved into the XBB.1.5 subvariant, known as Kraken, which has been spreading across the United States and parts of Europe.

In the Balkans, Serbia doesn’t have official information on the Kraken being detected. However, Serbian media report it may soon be recorded in the country after the subvariant has been already reported by Romania.