Photo: Mario Tama / Getty Images
By: EFE
Tuesday, November 5
WHO: Omicron variant of coronavirus is already in almost 60 countries, but mild cases abound
A total of 57 countries have already detected cases of the new variant Omicron coronavirus , although many of them have no or mild symptoms, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights in a report that warns about the high possibility of reinfection that the new strain seems to have.
The organization’s weekly epidemiological report highlights that the 212 confirmed cases in 18 countries of the European Union (EU) were in people with mild or even asymptomatic symptoms.
The WHO warns however that although the Omicron variant may cause fewer severe cases than the delta (currently predominant) could increase hospitalizations and deaths if, as is feared, it is more contagious and causes m More infections in general.
In the last 60 days, of the 799, 000 cases of
COVID – 19 analyzed by the network GISAID global laboratories more than 99% are still caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus, and only 713 (0.1%) belong to the Omicron.
However, that number is considerably higher than that indicated by the WHO a week ago ( when GISAID had identified 14 omicron cases) and the variant already outnumbers others previously detected, such as alpha or gamma.
The WHO cites forecasts of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, that it expects the Ómicron to become in the dominant variant in the EU (more than 50% of cases) between January and March of 2022, depending on the level of transmissibility that it ends up having.
The WHO highlights the strong increase in cases in southern African countries, the region where Omicron was first detected: not just South Africa, where cases have doubled in a week (100% more), but Eswatini (1, 990%), Zimbabwe (1, 361%), Mozambique (1, 207%), Namibia (681%) and Lesotho (219%) .
The report nonetheless emphasizes that these were The increases could be related to the greater number of diagnostic tests that have been carried out in these countries in recent weeks due to the alarm for the Omicron variant.
One of the points of greatest concern of the new variant is its apparently high level of reinfection, that is, the ability to infect people who have already had the disease before and had therefore developed natural antibodies against the coronavirus.
The WHO emphasizes in this sense that the variant “seems to extend rapidly in a highly immunized population such as South Africa ”.
Although the COVID vaccination rate in South Africa is low (around 35%), the WHO believes that the country has an immunization level of its adults between 60 % and the 80%, due to the high number of people estimated to have suffered the disease.
The WHO report still does not shed light on the possible effect of the new variant in anticovid vaccines, but indicates that the treatments used in severe cases of the disease (corticosteroids, interleukin-6 antagonists) seem to continue to work against this strain.
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