JOHANNESBURG: Omicron Coronavirus variant detected in South Africa can be the most likely candidate to replace the highly contagious Delta variant, Director of the South African infectious disease said on Tuesday.
Omicron’s discovery has caused a global alarm, with countries limiting the journey from South Africa for fear of being able to spread rapidly even in a vaccinated population and the World Health Organization said it brings the risk of high surge infection.
“We think what will defeat Delta? It is always a question, in terms of transmission at least, … maybe this special variant is a variant,” Adrian Puren, acting executive director of the South African National Institute for infectious diseases (NiCD), told Reuters An interview.
If Omicron proves more transmitted than the Delta variant, it can lead to a sharp surge in infection that can suppress hospitals.
Purent said scientists must know within four weeks to what extent omicron can avoid the immunity produced by the vaccine or infection before, and whether it leads to clinical symptoms that are worse than other variants.
Anecdotal accounts by doctors who have treated Covid-19 patients South Africa said Omicron seemed to produce mild symptoms, including dry cough, fever and night sweat, but experts have warned of interesting company conclusions.
Purun said it was too early to say whether Omicron transferred Delta in South Africa, because local scientists only produced 87 Omicron order so far.
But the fact that cases have begun to rise quickly, especially in the most dense Gauteng province, is a sign that some displacement might have happened.
Delta drives a third wave of Covid-19 infection in South Africa which peaks more than 26,000 cases per day in early July. Omicron is expected to trigger the fourth wave, with a daily infection seen 10,000 toppings at the end of the week of around 2,270 on Monday.
Anne Von Gottberg, a clinical microbiologist at NiCd, said it looked like an infection rising throughout the country.
On Monday, the NiCD A presentation marked a large number of Covid-19 receipts among infants under two years old as a concerned field. But Von Gottberg warned against connecting it with Omicron first.
“It seems that actually some of the acceptance may have started before the emergence of Omicron. We also saw that there was an increase in influenza cases only last month, and so we had to be truly careful to see other respiratory infections,” he said.
“We saw the data very, very carefully, but when I wasn’t too sure that we could define it definitively to Omicron.”
South Africa has been praised for warning the global scientific community and who is so fast to Omicron – a bold step considering the damage imposed by restrictions on travel by various countries including the important tourism sector.