WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 BA.3.2 variant, reported by at least 23 countries as of February 11, has been detected in multiple sources in the United States, including nasal swabs from four travelers, clinical samples from five patients, three airplane wastewater samples, and 132 wastewater surveillance samples from 25 states, according to a study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
First identified in a respiratory sample in South Africa in November 2024, BA.3.2 carries roughly 70 to 75 substitutions and deletions in the spike protein gene compared with the JN.1 variant and its descendant LP.8.1-the antigens used in the latest COVID-19 vaccines.
Detections of BA.3.2 began rising in September 2025. The first U.S. identification occurred on June 27, 2025, through the CDC's Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance program in a person traveling from the Netherlands. Between November 2025 and January 2026, weekly detections of BA.3.2 increased to around 30 percent of sequences in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the U.S., the first detection in a clinical specimen was documented on January 5, 2026. By February 11, the variant accounted for 0.19 percent of 2,579 genetic sequences collected nationwide starting December 1, 2025.
In the U.S., BA.3.2 has been identified across 25 U.S. states, including California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming, Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio. However, despite its widespread detection, the full implications of this highly evasive variant remain unclear.
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