How dangerous are Omicron’s sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5, cases found in Delhi
Corona infection is increasing in the country. Omicron and its sub-variants are being held responsible for the increasing cases of corona. So far, cases of Omicron’s sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 have been reported in Mumbai. Were coming, but now it has been entered in Delhi also.
According to the news agency, Omicron’s sub-variant BA.5 has been confirmed in several samples from Delhi between May and June 16. According to health officials, BA.5 has been found in 5% of samples from Central and South East Delhi. However, Omicron’s BA.2 sub-variant continues to dominate, while it has also been confirmed in 2% of the South Delhi sample. It was because of BA.2 that the third wave hit the country.
The news agency quoted sources as saying that some samples from Delhi were sent to the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) for genome sequencing. BA.4 and BA.5 are found in some samples.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week that Omicron and its sub-variants still remain a major challenge. According to WHO, cases of BA.4 have been reported in 62 countries and BA.5 in 58 countries.
How dangerous are these sub-variants?
Lalit Kant, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), told the news agency that the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants are derived from BA.2 and BA.1.
- He told that BA.4 and BA.5 are capable of dodging immunity made from Omicron. That is, people who were infected before Omicron can be re-infected because of these sub-variants. He told that the infectivity has increased 10 to 15 times due to the mutation.
- Lalit Kant said that if Omicron is spreading faster than Delta, then these sub-variants are more infectious than that. These sub-variants started spreading in South Africa in January and by March-April, BA.4 and BA.5 had replaced the original strain of Omicron, they said. In the US and Europe, both the sub-variants are spreading more rapidly than the rest of the sub-variants.
- WHO reported that infection with BA.4 and BA.5 does not cause serious disease, but its infectivity is much higher than the rest of the variants. These two sub-variants are called ‘variants of’ Europe and America. Concern’ has been declared.
No effect of vaccine
- Lalit Kant said that the data of many countries of the world shows that there is no serious illness due to infection with these sub-variants, nor is the number of hospitalized patients increasing. However, the matter of concern is that the vaccine is not having any effect on them. He told that in some cases BA.5 is spreading very fast and is also replacing BA.4. People who have taken the vaccine are much better than those who have not received the vaccine, but after 6-7 months of vaccination, the immunity starts decreasing.
