New Delhi: Emerging evidence from South Africa has revealed that although Covid cases with Omicron are rising rapidly signaling its high transmissibility, the variant of concern is not causing severe disease or hospitalisations. There is also no current suggestion that vaccines are ineffective against Omicron, WHO Africa experts said.
In a briefing on Thursday, Coordinator for Immunisation and Vaccine Development, WHO Africa Region Richard Mihigo said, “Encouragingly, emerging data from South Africa suggests the Omicron variant may cause less severe disease. Data on hospitalisations across the country between November 14 and December 4 found ICU occupancy at only 6.3 pc, which is very low compared to the same period when South Africa was facing a peak with the Delta variant in July.”
Mihigo said this was the preliminary analysis.
He also said researchers were working around the clock to determine whether Omicron was more contagious, caused more severe illness or if it had any impact on vaccines and treatment.
“There is an assumption that the current vaccines may not protect people against Omicron but so far there is no conclusive evidence that vaccines are ineffective against this new variant. Vaccines have protected people from severe disease and hospitalization due to other VOCs so far and there has been no need for modifying these vaccines so far,” Mihigo assured.
The WHO expert said researchers will need two to three weeks to determine the full effects of Omicron.
“WHO is improving its genomic surveillance to detect other variants of concern,” he said as South Africa entered the second week since the reporting of Omicron.
As of Thursday, Omicron has spread to 60 countries worldwide. Ten of these are in Africa.
“Nearly 46 per cent of the 1,000 Omicron cases worldwide are in the African continent. Cumulative Covid 19 cases in the continent are 8.8 million. Over the past week, new cases have risen by 93 pc compared with the week before. Three sub regions of the continent have reported an increase in cases this week, two more than the previous week. Southern Africa has recorded the highest increase with a weekly case rise of 140 pc mainly due to upsurge in South Africa,” Mihigo said.