World scrambles to contain Omicron coronavirus variant | South China Morning Post
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World scrambles to contain Omicron coronavirus variant
The emergence of a coronavirus variant with a large number of mutations could pose new challenges for China but too little was known about the strain, according to one of the country’s top respiratory disease specialists.
Chinese media reported Zhong Nanshan’s assessment of the Omicron variant on Saturday as countries around the world scrambled to contain the variety first found in southern Africa and identified on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant “of concern”.The WHO cautioned countries against “hastily” tightened travel restrictions.
A number of jurisdictions, from the European Union, to the United States, Hong Kong and Russia, tightened limits on travellers from countries in southern Africa.Dozens of confirmed cases have been identified in South Africa, Hong Kong, Botswana, Belgium and Israel, while suspected cases have been reported in the Czech Republic and Germany.Dutch officials said 61 people on two flights from South Africa to Amsterdam tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday, but it was not clear if they were infected with the new variant. China did not announce any new travel restrictions in response to the variant but the country has one of the strictest restrictions on border entry and flights. It has also introduced a flight suspension mechanism if there are more than five positive cases on board.
Sanjaya Senanayake, associate professor of medicine at the Australian National University, said Omicron was troubling because of its high number of mutations. Research indicated that it had 32 spike protein mutations, compared with the 13 to 17 seen in the more prevalent Delta variant.
“Some of these mutations can increase transmissibility of the variant, while others can help it evade the immune system: a worrying combination,” he told the Australian Science Media Centre. In a post on the website of Imperial College in London, Neil Ferguson, director of the college’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, said such a number of mutations in the spike protein gene was “unprecedented”. According to the WHO, early signs indicate an increased risk of reinfection from Omicron compared to other highly transmissible variants – meaning people who have had Covid-19 and recovered could be at greater risk of catching it again with Omicron.The WHO said studies were under way in South Africa and other countries to better understand the variant in terms of transmissibility, severity and any impact on the use of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.US infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci said that while the reports on the new variant threw up a “red flag”, it was possible that vaccines might still work to prevent serious illness.
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