Since the COVID-19 pandemic's onset, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has displayed remarkable mutation abilities, resulting in distinct variants. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron are major World Health Organization (WHO)-identified variants of concern. The Omicron variant and its sub-lineages dominated globally in 2022. A novel strain, EG.5.1 (Eris), originating from Omicron's XBB sub-lineage, has recently sparked a significant COVID-19 surge across continents. Detected since June 2023, EG.5.1 is linked to increased cases in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Factors like waning immunity, overcrowding, and poor air quality contributed to its rise. This variant is likely to prevail over other circulating variants and become dominant in UK by September 2023. Surveillance of its global epidemiology and implementing preventive measures have become imperative in light of the current situation.

None.

Received: 07 August 2023

Accepted: 12 August 2023

Article published online:
08 September 2023

© 2023. The Indian Association of Laboratory Physicians. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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