Grenada is reporting a continuous rise in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases with health officials saying that the island has had 17 confirmed cases in the first week of this year.
There has been no reported death.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shawn Charles, said while there were seven confirmed cases recorded from November 27 to December 31, last year the island recorded 17 cases during the period January 1-8, this year.
The Ministry of Health could not confirm if JN.1 or the latest COVID-19 variant of interest is among any of the cases reported because the last time the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) reference lab confirmed the type of COVID-19 variants circulating on the island was in September last year.
At that time, Omicron HH.2 and Omicron XBB.1.16 were the variants in circulation.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), JN.1 descends from variant BA.2.86 which is commonly referred to as Pirola and has an additional mutation in the spike protein.
It has recently become the most widely circulating variant in the United States and France.
The Johns Hopkins University in a post from its communications office said that this version of the COVID-19 virus shares many of the same symptoms as earlier variants of COVID-19 which are a sore throat, fatigue, headache, and a cough.
