The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday classified a new strain of COVID-19 as a "variant of interest."
The EG.5 variant has been spreading rapidly in the United States, encompassing over 17% of cases.
It has also been detected in China, South Korea, Japan and Canada.
The WHO said that the new variant does not at present seem to pose an additional public health risk compared to other strains of COVID-19.
"Collectively, available evidence does not suggest that EG.5 has additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating Omicron descendent lineages," the organization said.
It said that a more comprehensive evaluation of the risk posed by EG.5 was needed.
