Another variant of Covid 19 Coronavirus- Omicron
Anika H. Ahmed, MD
The unique feature of a virus, any virus is that it is constantly mutating and generating new forms, labelled as variants of the original virus. Coronavirus has deeply impacted the lives of everyone across the globe and still continues to do so, today posing a new risk with a new variant -Omicron, detected and announced by South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Nov. 25,2021 from samples taken from a laboratory between Nov. 14 to Nov. 16,2021. There has been an explosion of new cases in South Africa, which previously had a low level of infection, only after scientists discovered the Omicron variant. First detected in South Africa, it has quickly spread too, as people, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, continue to travel back and forth. So far, the Omicron variant has already been detected in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Botswana, Israel, Australia, and Hong Kong. The United States is closely monitoring and according to the Center of Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) so far there have been no new cases of Covid-19 due to the Omicron variant. CDC and the Department of Health & Human Services are closely, continuously monitoring variants and the US variant surveillance system previously reliably detected new variants in the United States. If Omicron emerges in the United States, it shall be identified quickly.
The Coronavirus continues to dig deeper and deeper roots across the world and the virus that initially started as a microscopic red mark in Asia, has grown into a massive tree, branching out as variants in different countries. Presently this huge Coronavirus tree growing across the globe, has established four huge branches namely the Alpha Variant (formerly called the UK Variant), the Beta Variant (formerly called the South Africa Variant), the Gamma Variant (formerly called the Brazil Variant) and the Delta Variant (formerly called the India Variant). The tree continues to sprout new branches and has recently grown a fifth variant namely the Omicron that has seen to sprout in South Africa. Scientists are closely studying this new Omicron variant of Coronavirus and so far, know that this could be more infectious than other variants, could be transmitted easily through droplet infection and may show resistance to a person’s immune system that has vaccine-induced antibodies or convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and has monoclonal antibodies.
Current research indicates that in the Omicron variant there are about 32 or more mutations in the very important spike protein of the virus, which makes it more transmissible and more resistant to antibodies that were effective against the first main four Coronavirus variants mainly Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
To prevent the spread of this new Omicron variant of Coronavirus the Center of Diseases Control & Prevention (CDC) highly recommends everyone to follow prevention strategies such as wearing a mask (even if fully vaccinated) in public indoor settings, especially in substantial high risk, community transmission areas, washing hands with soap and water frequently, and physical distancing from others. Besides this, everyone 5 years and older must protect themselves by getting fully vaccinated, including getting a vaccine booster dose. This will prepare the immune system to better fight the Omicron variant and result in milder symptoms, hence avoiding hospitalization and all possible complications.