Omicron Symptoms: Mild Muscle Aches, Scratchy Throat, Extreme Tiredness, Says South African Doctor

Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first detected the new Omicron variant in her patients, said that the symptoms linked to the Omicron variant are extremely mild.

The symptoms linked to the Omicron variant are extremely mild, said doctor who first detected variant in patients| File photo

New Delhi: Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first detected the new Omicron variant in her patients, said Sunday that they had only shown mild symptoms and recovered fully without hospitalisation, AFP reported.

Quoting Coetzee, who is chair of the South African Medical Association, the report said she had seen around 30 patients over the past 10 days who tested positive for Covid-19 but experienced unfamiliar symptoms.

She said it was extreme tiredness that brought them to the surgery, and that this was unusual for younger patients, the report stated.

Most patients were men under 40 years of age, and less than 50 per cent of the patients were vaccinated, the report said.

Common Symptoms Seen In Omicron Cases 

Coetzee told BBC Sunday that the symptoms linked to the Omicron variant are extremely mild. She said it started with a male patient who is around the age of 33, and who told her that he had been extremely tired for the past few days and experienced body aches and pains with a bit of headache, the reports said.

She said the patients also had mild muscle aches, a scratchy throat, and dry cough, and only a few had slightly high temperature. 

On November 18, Coetzee received the first seven of her 30 patients, and alerted health officials of a "clinical picture that doesn't fit Delta", the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the AFP report said. 

South African scientists announced the news about the detection of the new variant on November 25, which was followed by travel bans on South Africa, according to reports.

Omicron is being called an extremely dangerous virus variant with multiple mutations, which Coetzee said is unfortunate, because the virulency of the variant is still unknown, the AFP report stated. 

Coetzee said it is not that there will not be severe disease coming forward. She said even the patients who are not vaccinated have mild symptoms, and that she was sure a lot of people in Europe already have the virus, according to the report. 

Nearly three-quarters of the Covid-19 cases reported in South Africa in recent days have been identified as Omicron, according to official statistics.

Coetzee warned there will be a rise in cases, the report said.