TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed on Sunday (Dec. 17) that the COVID-19 variant JN.1, which has surged globally, has only sporadically appeared in Taiwan's local cases.
In a text message, CDC Spokesman Lo Yi-chun explained that JN.1 is a descendant of the BA.2.86 variant. Taiwan first detected JN.1 on Oct. 20 in a traveler from Japan, with the earliest local case found on Oct. 30. To date, JN.1 cases in Taiwan have remained isolated.
Lo emphasized that the weekly epidemiological updates include JN.1 in the BA.2.86 statistics. The local proportion of the variant is below 5 percent, and overseas cases are under 20 percent, indicating that JN.1 has not become the dominant strain.
Furthermore, Lo highlighted that following the World Health Organization's (WHO) latest vaccine recommendations released last Friday, there's no need to change vaccine strains, as the XBB.1.5 strain remains effective.
David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, led a study demonstrating the effectiveness of the XBB.1.5 vaccine in protecting against various variants, including BA.2.86 and JN.1.