7 Things You Must Know About Omicron BA.2 Variant
Omicron BA.2 is spreading faster in countries like Denmark, the Philippines and South Africa
Just when we were about to heave a sigh of relief due to the falling number of COVID cases, another subvariant of the coronavirus variant Omicron emerged.
While experts at the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said that it is on the rise, new lab experiments from Japan show that BA.2 Omicron sub variant may have features that make it as capable of causing serious illness as older variants of COVID-19, including Delta, reported CNN.
The Omicron sub variant, BA.2, first originated in the Philippines in November 2021.
Currently, the Omicron variant has BA.1, BA.2, BA.3 and B.1.1.529 sub variants of which the BA.1 was dominant a few months before and scientists have recently warned about the BA.2 sub variant.
On the viral properties of the Omicron sub variant, a Nature report says, researchers think that a large part of the reason Omicron quickly replaced the Delta variant is its ability to infect and spread among people who had been immune to Delta.
So one possibility for BA.2’s rise is that it’s even better than BA.1 at overcoming immunity — potentially including the protection gained from a BA.1 infection.
Experts have found many distinguishable mutations in BA.2 from BA.1 mostly in the spike protein region which confirms the speculation around the immunity evasive property of the virus.
Preliminary research studies have shown that the BA.2 sub variant can overcome immunity from vaccination and can also dodge the immunity of the body developed through previous infection with earlier variants.
Many researchers have said that even double-vaccinated and boosted individuals are more susceptible to BA.2 Omicron infection than to BA.1 Omicron.
The unvaccinated ones are at a heightened risk of contracting the infection.