Are our laboratories ready to detect the Omicron variant?
Anika H. Ahmed, MD
Scientists are not stopping when it comes to the fight against COVID-19. The first case of the Omicron variant was detected and announced on November 25, out in South Africa and it was detected upon evidence of new sequencing in the COVID-19 samples. Clinicians became suspicious when a large number of patients showed up at clinics with extreme fatigue, exhaustion, headache and generalized body aches. Careful analysis of the samples at the laboratories indicated new mutations and sequencing in the Coronavirus, that was labelled as the Omicron variant.
This is where technology plays a key role in figuring out new variants of the Coronavirus. Correct detection all depends on the way the computer code looks for the differences in the virus compared to the original Wuhan strain. The sequencing is actually exactly the same. A positive specimen for SARS-COV-2 is actually sequenced the exact same way whether it is an Alpha, Delta or an Omicron or any unknown variant, that we may not know. Then a computer algorithm is put in to check and make sure that all the critical mutations for the different variants of Coronavirus are looked into. The outcoming result is reported and identified as a particular variant namely Alpha or Delta or Omicron.
All the identified variants of SARS-COV-2 have unique mutations. It has been observed so far that actually the Alpha variant and the Omicron variant, do have some things in common. They are both more transmissible and hence spread faster. They both have some of the same mutations that may predict more transmissibility, which in plain words means that there are mutations in both Alpha and Omicron variants, that makes the virus attach more tightly and multiply efficiently, thus helping it spread faster and wider. .
To correctly detect the new Omicron variant, all laboratories need to make sure that their computer methods are in place and ready. With all these mutations, it needs to be ensure dthat the current sequencing laboratory techniques work to amplify all of the different regions of the Coronavirus. Most of the laboratories have been working on this aspect and have confirmed that their current sequencing methods would be able to detect and successfully sequence Omicron.