SOUTH AFRICAN HEALTH EXPERTS WARN: NOT TO BE TOO COMPLACENT ABOUT THE OMICRON VARIANT

12/09/2023

Scientists in South Africa warned that it is still too early to conclude that this new variant of the virus only causes mild symptoms for patients. As predicted by leading experts, patients may experience more severe symptoms after a long time carrying this variant.


Omicron has become the main variant of the virus in this country. With the number of cases doubling the number of infections in 24 hours - 8,561 cases according to the announcement of the National Institute of Infectious Research.


“New Covid 19 cases are increasing strongly among young people and there is no definitive confirmation that this situation will not occur in older age groups. Even the actual symptoms may only occur in a few weeks”, according to Michelle’s assessment - Head of the Department of Health Surveillance and Response at NICD.

November 25, 2011 was the day that this variant was officially announced in South Africa, and the name of the variant was given by WHO. When this news was announced, the stock market witnessed another strong sell-off. Some countries have issued orders banning people from traveling to South Africa.

The danger of this new variant may still be hidden when most of the population has contracted other Covid 19 variants or has been vaccinated so the immune system is enhanced so the impact of Omicron is unclear. An infectious disease expert at KRISP genetic hospital predicts.

Although having a lower vaccination rate than many Western countries and China, South Africa still has a vaccination rate of 25% of the population, higher than many countries in the region.

This new variant scares many scientists because of the number of genetic mutations up to 50, of which 26 mutations are unique to this variant.

A more optimistic prediction from The New York Times: The situation may not be bad when mutations can combine to increase strength for the virus but they may also cancel each other out.

Evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Ms. Jesse Bloom in Seattle, USA, said: “In principle, mutations can also counteract each other. However, in this case, evolutionary selection is more likely to lead to the spread of a new variant with favorable rather than unfavorable mutation combinations”.

This phenomenon, called gene interaction, is why scientists do not want to speculate on the attributes of the Omicron variant, although individual mutations in the variant are related to higher transmissibility or with ability to evade immunity.

Source: Bizlive

READ MORE

WhatsApp