With an uptick in the number of new cases and the confirmation of a new JN.1 strain of Covid-19 circulating in India, health authorities in Nepal say they are closely following developments in the southern neighbour.

Even though Nepal has not seen a new surge of coronavirus cases, surveillance measures including testing and gene sequencing will be stepped up in the coming days, according to officials.

“The report of whole-genome sequencing of the positive cases reported in November will come in two days,” said Dr Ranjan Bhatta, director at the National Public Health Laboratory. “We will also carry out gene sequencing on swab samples of people who tested positive for coronavirus.”

A whole-genome sequencing is a comprehensive analysis of the entire DNA of an organism’s genes. Researchers believe that the whole-genome sequencing of the coronavirus could be instrumental in tracking the severity and properties of the virus.

India recorded one death and 142 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday with the active caseload rising to 1,970. At least seven deaths, including one in Uttar Pradesh, which shares a land border with Nepal, were reported in the past few days, according to media reports.

Some states of India, including Kerala, Goa and Karnataka, have seen a jump in coronavirus cases in recent days. Health authorities of those states have advised elderly and comorbid people to follow safety measures such as wearing masks.

Several countries, including China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, have reported a surge in new cases of coronavirus of late.

The JN.1 strain, first detected in September in the United States, is a descendant of BA.2.86, which is a highly mutated variant of the Omicron strain of Covid-19. India’s central government has issued an advisory to state governments, urging them to make adequate health arrangements and to monitor cases of influenza-like illness, perform adequate testing and send all positive samples for whole genome sequencing.

Scientists closely following the new strains and variants of the coronavirus said that JN.1 contains only one additional mutation on the spike protein. Mutations on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 matter, as they are the ones that attach to receptors on human cells and allow the virus to enter them, according to them.

Symptoms of JN.1 are similar to those caused by previous strains of virus—fever, runny nose, sore throat, headache, and gastrointestinal symptoms like abdominal pain and diarrhoea.

Nepal has lifted all measures—social distancing, wearing of face masks, and contact tracing, among others—taken against Covid-19, following a decline in new cases of Omicron in 2021. The Health Ministry has also stopped administering vaccines against the coronavirus.