Omicron Variant Of Coronavirus Could Outcompete Delta, Warns South Africa’s NICD Executive Director

“We thought what will outcompete Delta? That has always been the question, in terms of transmissibility at least, ... perhaps this particular variant is the variant,” he told Reuters in an interview.

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New Delhi: Adrian Puren, the acting executive director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), has said the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus detected in southern Africa could be the most likely to displace the highly contagious Delta variant.

“We thought what will outcompete Delta? That has always been the question, in terms of transmissibility at least, ... perhaps this particular variant is the variant,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Puren in the interview earlier on Tuesday said the scientists should know within four weeks to what extent Omicron can evade the immunity generated by vaccines or prior infection and whether it leads to worse clinical symptoms than other variants.

The acting executive director of South Africa’s NICD, however, added that it was too early to say whether Omicron was displacing Delta in South Africa since the local scientists have only produced 87 sequences of Omicron so far.

Omicron, which is expected to trigger a fourth wave, could lead to a sharp spike in infections if it proves even more transmissible than the Delta variant.

Meanwhile, Anne von Gottberg, a clinical microbiologist at the NICD, said it looked like infections were rising throughout the country.

As an area of concern, an NICD presentation earlier on Monday flagged a large number of Covid-19 admissions among the infants aged under two years.

“It looks like in fact some of those admissions might have started before the emergence of Omicron. We are also seeing that there was an increase in influenza cases just in the last month or so and so we need to be really careful to look at the other respiratory infections,” Gottberg said.

“We are looking at the data very, very carefully, but at the moment I'm not too sure that we can link it definitively to Omicron,” she added.

South Africa, which reported close to three million Covid-19 infections during the pandemic and over 89,000 deaths, has been applauded for alerting the global scientific community and the World Health Organisation (WHO) quickly to Omicron.

The anecdotal accounts by the doctors, who have treated South African Covid-19 patients, say Omicron appears to be producing mild symptoms, including a dry cough, fever and night sweats.

The experts have, however, warned against drawing firm conclusions.

The WHO earlier on Monday warned Omicron poses a “very high” risk globally.

It stressed that uncertainties about how contagious and dangerous the strain was, remained, AFP reported.