The World Health Organisation has said that it was hoping that information on the transmissibility of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus will come by within days.
WHO technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove, said in a briefing that a possible scenario was that the new variant which was first reported in southern Africa maybe more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant, but it was not yet known if Omicron “makes people more ill.”
As of this posting, the WHO identified the new strain as a “variant of concern”.
Meanwhile, an initial research from South African experts showed that the Omicron variant is three times more likely to cause reinfections compared to Delta and Beta variants.
The data provides the first epidemiological evidence about Omicron’s ability to escape immunity.
The paper was uploaded in a preprint server but the study has yet to be peer reviewed.
The study showed 35,670 suspected reinfections among 2.8 million individuals with positive tests until November 27.
They were tested 90 days apart which indicate reinfection.
“Recent reinfections have occurred in individuals whose primary infections occurred across all three waves, with the most having their primary infection in the Delta wave,” Juliet Pulliam, director of the South African DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis said in a tweet.
