WHO designates new B.1.1.529 COVID strain as ‘variant of concern’, renames it Omicron
By Team Newsable | First Published Nov 27, 2021, 10:27 AM ISTThe WHO said about 100 genome sequences of the variant have been reported so far. Many of the infected people were fully vaccinated, with at least one person in Israel having also received a third booster dose of vaccine.
Fears that a new, fast-spreading coronavirus variant first detected in southern Africa, could potentially be more dangerous than even the Delta variant has been designated as a Variant of Concern by the World Health Organisation, which named it Omicron. A variant of concern is the WHO's top category of worrying Covid-19 variants.
The WHO named the recently detected B.1.1.529 strain of Covid-19 'Omicron,' after the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. “Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology... the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern (VOC), named Omicron,” the WHO said in a statement. The United Nations' health body has warned that the variant has a large number of mutations.
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“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa,” the WHO said in a statement on Friday.
The WHO said about 100 genome sequences of the variant have been reported so far. Many of the infected people were fully vaccinated, with at least one person in Israel having also received a third booster dose of vaccine.
The variant, first reported to WHO from South Africa on Wednesday, has also been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
The WHO has advised countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database.
The Delta variant, first discovered in India late last year, has been the deadliest variant of SARS-CoV2 on all these three counts till now. It is the dominant variant now in most regions, and is the reason behind the deadly second wave in India, and the ongoing surge in Europe and a few other regions.
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