South African Scientists Discover Two New Breeds Of Omicron Variant, WHO: No Reason To Worry

JAKARTA - South African scientists discovered two new Omicron COVID-19 subvariants found in samples from a number of countries, with the World Health Organization (WHO) calling it nothing to worry about.

South African scientists have discovered two new sublineages of the Omicron coronavirus variant, said Tulio de Oliveira, who runs the country's gene sequencing institute.

The lineages have been named BA.4 and BA.5. According to de Oliveira, this new lineage did not cause a spike in infections in South Africa and has been found in samples from a number of countries.

"Given South Africa's very low infections, hospitalizations and deaths, we are alert about continued evolution but not concerned," de Oliveira said, citing The National News April 13.

"All laboratory science on virus neutralization and vaccines is already underway and we are strengthening genomic surveillance," he said.

It is known, South Africa and Botswana were the first to discover the Omicron variant last November. And, South Africa was the first country to be hit by a wave of infections caused by the strain.

But the number of deaths and people requiring hospitalization is only a fraction of those caused by the Delta variant, even as daily cases hit a record high in December.

This new sublineage has also been found in samples from Botswana, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the UK, de Oliveira said.

Separately, so far, four samples containing the sublineage have been identified in Botswana and 23 in South Africa, the World Health Organization said in a statement.

"There is no reason to worry," said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.

"We are working with scientists in Botswana and South Africa to gain complete behavioral knowledge of this sub-lineage."

It is known that the two new lineages have a similar mutation in their spike protein, the part of the virus that helps the virus attach to human cells, to the BA.2 sublineage, which appears to be more infectious than the original Omicron strain.

The two sublineages differ from each other in terms of amino acid mutations outside of the spike protein, Moeti said.