Health officials in British Columbia have confirmed the first case of the BA.2.86 strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, marking the first infection of its kind detected in Canada.

The COVID-19 coronavirus variant has recently been added to the World Health Organization's list of variants under monitoring.

Although BA.2.86 is not currently causing a sustained rise in infection cases in Europe, the United States, and Canada, it possesses some mutations that are "concerning," according to Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease expert based in Toronto, who spoke to CTVNews.ca about the variant last week.

He said, "There were components in this mutation that reminded us of BA.2, which we saw much earlier in the Omicron era. There were (also) components similar to Delta mutations."

Bogoch also confirmed, as did health officials, that the variant has only been recently identified, and it is too early to determine its impact, if any, on the course of COVID-19 in Canada.

Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, stated: "The British Columbia Center for Disease Control has identified the first case in British Columbia of a person infected with the BA.2.86 strain of Omicron in an individual from the Fraser Health region who has not traveled outside the province."

She added: "This is the first known case in Canada of this variant. So far, there does not appear to be an increase in the severity of this strain of the coronavirus, nor is the individual being hospitalized."

Health officials indicated that the discovery of the variant in British Columbia is a testament to the province's ongoing surveillance of the coronavirus through testing and wastewater monitoring.

The province has not released public data regarding the first detection of other Omicron subvariants in British Columbia, such as the XBB and EG.5 strains.

According to Dix and Henry, XBB.1.5 remains the most commonly reported subvariant in British Columbia, with no other cases of BA.2.86 detected in the province so far.