The DKI Jakarta Health Service (Dinkes) confirmed that the Covid-19 Orthrus variant had been detected in DKI Jakarta.
“Omicron Barisan Orthrus or CH.1.1 has already had 30 cases in Jakarta health facilities,” said DKI Jakarta Health Service (Dinkes) Epidemiology and Immunization Surveillance Section Head Ngabila Salama.
According to Ngabila, the first case of a patient infected with Orthrus was identified in Jakarta on November 4, 2022.
“The first time it was in Jakarta on November 4, 2022, the PCR was positive,” said Ngabila.
Positive asymptomatic According to Ngabila, 60 percent of Orthrus cases were people without symptoms (OTG), while 40 percent of cases had mild symptoms. Ngabila said that cases of variant Orthrus in DKI were found in 19 people who live in Jakarta, and 11 people whose domiciles are outside Jakarta.
Getting to know the Orthrus variant The Orthrus variant is the variant that accounts for around a quarter of Covid-19 cases in the UK. Quoted from the Independent page, the Orthrus variant is also known as CH.1.1 and some experts predict that this variant may replace BQ.1 as the main cause of Covid-19 in the UK. England, this variant was detected in November last year and continues to spread to various regions in England.
Even though it is not classified as a variant of concern, it is believed that the Orthrus variant is moving towards variant dominance in England with Kraken or XBB 1.5. There are currently at least 8,700 cases of the Orthrus variant in the UK.
Meanwhile, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Orthrus variant is the fifth most frequently ordered variant in the US. Meanwhile, the XBB 1.1.5 subvariant is still the most frequently detected variant. The currently known Orthrus variant is also responsible for a third of cases in New Zealand.
Other countries where this variant was also found were Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea with a quarter of the total cases in these countries. Meanwhile, in Cambodia and Ireland, the Orthrus variant accounts for at least a fifth of cases there.
Orthrus has a mutation that is also present in the Delta variant, which is a variant of the virus that has previously caused spikes in cases in various countries. The mention of Orthrus was made because CH.1.1 is quite hard to remember. Orthrus is not the official name of the variant. Orthrus means two-headed dog in Greek mythology. This dog in the story is assigned to guard Geryon’s livestock.
Cornelius Romer, a computational biologist at the University of Basel, Switzerland, said that XBB.1.5 is indeed the most contagious type of Covid-19. But according to him CH.1.1 is also very contagious. The Ohio State researchers said CH.1.1 binds well to the ACE2 receptor, which is the site of the virus infecting human cells.
This makes it potentially overcome antibody immunity from previous infections and vaccinations, even potentially causing severity. The Ohio State researcher used the lab-made version of CH.1.1 and checked how well the vaccine that 14 health workers had received.
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