Recently, a Coronavirus outbreak was seen in South Africa which comes out to be a new strain of the virus. It was given the name ‘Omicron’. This Omicron is said to be one of the problematic variants. This variant was first reported in South Africa on 24th November 2021.
Labs test did not detect one of the three genes known as “S gene dropout or S gene target failure”. This may be used as a marker for this variant. For detecting this variant, various labs are using the “S gene droupout” technique. It was found that Omicron may have some kind of growth advantage, as they grow at a faster rate than any of the previous strains of the virus.
This COVID-19 test can detect the known variants, but can not distinguish them.
There are two variants known as ‘Variant of Interest (VOI)’ and ‘Variant of Concern (VOC)’. VOCs are the variants that show a decrease in the effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.
“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning”, said the WHO. There is no study come which say this strain have different symptoms than others. But yes some of the symptoms vary, which are normal like pains in different body parts while severe symptoms also occurs, as it may vary in different strain.
According to CDC, FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines protect against Delta and other known variants. But as there is not much information available yet regarding this variant, so we currently basically have little to no idea of the effectiveness of current vaccines against this new variant.
So, the strain is here and there are very high chances that it might spread again all over the world. It is our responsibility to slow down and stop its spread.
We need to take proper precautions like:-
1. Wearing a mask when you go outside.
2. Avoiding gathering in public.
3. If you have not taken the vaccine yet, take it as soon as possible.
4. Vaccinated people also need to take precautions as we do not know about the new strain very well.
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