The Omicron variant of COVID-19 may have developed at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from common cold virus, a study said.
New Delhi: The Omicron variant of COVID-19, which has fueled relentless waves of infection recently in many countries including India, may have developed at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from the common cold virus present in the same infected cells, a study said. According to a report by news agency Reuters, researchers said this “genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome”.Also Read – Omicron Variant Three Times More Likely To Cause Reinfection Than Delta: Study
Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, had posted the details of the study on the website OSF Preprints. According to the study, the new variant of COVID-19 – Omicron (B.1.1.529) – might be “making itself look ‘more human’, which would help it evade attack by the human immune system”.
While about three dozen countries worldwide have reported omicron infections, including India on Thursday, the numbers so far are small outside of South Africa, which is facing a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases and where the new variant may be becoming dominant.
WHAT IS OMICRON VARIANT OF CORONAVIRUS: HOW BAD IS IT?
A new variant of COVID-19 – Omicron (B.1.1.529) – was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year.
Since then, at least 373 cases of the Omicron variant have been reported from 29 nations including India, according to the data by World Health Organisation (WHO). India had reported the first two cases of Omicron variant in Karnataka on Thursday, the Union health ministry said. Of the two Omicron-infected patients in the country, one is a 46-year-old doctor from Bengaluru and the other is a 66-year-old South African national who came to India with a negative Covid test report. Both the patients were double vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine.
Even as fresh Omicron variant cases have been reported worldwide, not much is quite known about the new version of the virus. Still, much remains unclear about omicron, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it makes people more seriously ill, or whether it can evade vaccine protection.
However, a preliminary study by South African researchers stated that the Omicron variant of coronavirus may increase the risk of reinfection by three times as compared to other variants of concern such as Delta and Beta.
“We find evidence of increased reinfection risk associated with the emergence of the #Omicron variant, suggesting evasion of immunity from prior infection,” Juliet R.C. Pulliam, from DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA) at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, said on Twitter.
On Friday, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said measures used to counter the delta variant should remain the foundation for fighting the coronavirus pandemic. “The positive news in all of this is that none of the information we have currently about omicron suggests we need to change the directions of our response,” Takeshi Kasai, the WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, was quoted as saying by news agency The Associated Press.
