Health Canada is monitoring a new COVID-19 variant that has been detected in several countries, public health officials have confirmed.

The World Health Organization (WHO) to its list of COVID-19 variants that are under monitoring on Thursday.

While there are no cases of BA.2.86 confirmed in Canada yet, Health Canada told CTVNews.ca that public health officials are also monitoring for any cases that may arise.

鈥淭he Government of Canada has a strong monitoring program in place with the provinces and territories to identify COVID-19 variants in Canada,鈥� a spokesperson for Health Canada said in an emailed statement Monday.

鈥淧ublic Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) scientists, along with national and international experts, are actively monitoring and evaluating BA.2.86 lineages and their associated studies.鈥�

The new variant has been detected in Denmark, Israel and the U.S. since late July, according to the open global genome sequencing database .

Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts maintain that the emergence of this new variant is not yet reason to be concerned.

鈥淧eople should be cautious about jumping to premature conclusions,鈥� said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a Toronto-based infectious disease expert, during a phone interview with CTVNews.ca on Monday.

鈥淎s it stands, we鈥檙e at six genotypes from four countries on three continents. That鈥檚 all,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o we know what the genetic make-up is and there are components of that that raise an eyebrow for sure, but that鈥檚 about all we know.鈥�

Bogoch explained that this emerging variant deviates from more recent mutations of COVID-19.

鈥淭here were components of this mutation that were reminiscent of BA2, which we saw much earlier on in the Omicron era,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here were [also] components similar to Delta mutations.鈥�

Since the detection of this mutation is still early, Bogoch said that not enough information is known about BA.2.86鈥檚 transmissibility.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 know anything about what we would call virulence 鈥� how hard a punch [a variant] like this would pack.鈥�

Bogoch added that detection tactics such as wastewater surveillance have proven 鈥渆xtremely important.鈥�

鈥淕enotyping,鈥� a component of pathogen surveillance networks, allow scientists to observe changes in viruses in multiple regions 鈥� through waste water or clinical diagnosis 鈥� and then share data to open source public networks, he explained.

Dr. Tyson Graber, a research associate at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa who has helped detect prior variant mutations in wastewater research, further emphasized that it鈥檚 too soon to tell how transmissible the virus will be.

鈥淏A.2.86 is not yet contributing to the current wave that has begun in many locations in Europe, the U.S. and here in Canada,鈥� he wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca. 鈥淏ut clinical and wastewater surveillance networks in Ontario are providing the public with excellent situational awareness as we head into an uncertain fall pandemic period.鈥�

According to WHO, all viruses, including , the virus that causes COVID-19, change over time.

鈥淢ost changes have little to no impact on the virus鈥檚 properties. However, some changes may affect the virus鈥檚 properties, such as how easily it spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance of vaccines, therapeutic medicines, diagnostic tools, or other public health and social measures,鈥� the organization鈥檚 website reads.

Bogoch believes the important part of this new COVID-19 lineage is that these cases were 鈥渄etected early.鈥�

鈥淭hey were shared globally rather quickly,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd we鈥檒l learn a lot more about this in the coming weeks as more genomes are uploaded to the system. It鈥檚 too soon to know whether this is going to amount to anything or not.鈥�