Omicron BA.2 Variant Will Not Lead To Another Wave: IMA Covid Task Force Official

Omicron BA.2 Virus: Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman national IMA Covid Task Force, said BA.2 was more transmissible than BA.1.

New Delhi: Amid concern over the BA.2 sub-strain of the Omicron variant, a top health expert said it would not lead to another surge in Covid-19 cases in India.

Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman national IMA Covid Task Force, told ANI that BA.2 cannot infect those who have previously contracted BA.1 sub-variant of Covid. However, Dr Jayadevan warned that BA.2 was more transmissible than BA.1.

"It will not cause another surge. BA.2 is not capable of infecting people who had BA.1. It's not a new virus or strain. BA.2 is a sub-lineage of Omicron," ANI quoted Dr Jayadevan as saying.

"BA.2 is a little bit more transmissible than BA.1. For the last two years, it has constantly evolved to increase its fitness, which is its ability to infect more people and to leap past natural immunity and vaccinated immunity," he said.

READ | WHO Warns Against Omicron Sub-Variant As BA.2 Cases Rise In Denmark And UK

Last week, the World health Organisation (WHO) said an increase in the number of Omicron BA.2 cases were being witnessed across the world.

The BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has been detected in multiple countries such as Denmark and the UK. It now accounts for roughly one in five new Omicron cases recorded across the world, the WHO said.

Explaining the reason behind the spike in cases,  Dr Jayadevan said BA.2 has immune escape ability. "This means that if you've been naturally infected, or if you've been vaccinated or both, this virus can still infect us," ANI quoted him as saying.

"Omicron showed that even vaccine immunity can be easily surpassed by variants and this trend will be expected in the future as new variants arrive," Dr Jayadevan said.

Citing a study conducted on hamsters in Japan, Dr Jayadevan said that BA.2 might cause severe lung disease.

"As of today, symptoms of Omicron are no different between BA.1 and BA.2. So there is no difference in severity. However, there is a study from Japan done on hamsters. In this study, hamsters showed that BA.2 involved the lungs more than BA.1," Dr Jayadevan said.

"It is believed that BA.2 is increasing in India. But in several other Asian countries in the region and across Europe, the prevalence is slowly increasing, particularly in Denmark. There's a slight increase in the United States and also in Britain," he told ANI.