Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 18
With seven countries in the South-East Asia Region confirming cases of the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, the World Health Organisation today emphasised on urgent scale up of public health and social measures to curtail its further spread.
Has doubling rate of 1.5 to 3 days
Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant in countries with documented community transmission, with a doubling time between 1.5 and 3 days. World Health Organisation
“Countries can and must prevent the spread of Omicron with the proven health and social measures. Our focus must continue to be to protect the least protected and those at high risk,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region.
The overall threat posed by Omicron largely depends on three key questions — its transmissibility; how well the vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect against it, and how virulent the variant is as compared to other variants.
“From what we know so far, Omicron appears to spread faster than the Delta variant which has been attributed to the surge in cases across the world in the last several months,” she said.
Emerging data from South Africa suggests increased risk of re-infection with Omicron, she said, adding that there was still limited data on the clinical severity associated with Omicron. “Further information is needed to fully understand the variant. It should not be dismissed as mild,” she said, adding that even if it does cause less severe disease, the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm health systems.
Variant tally 126
Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.
1
4
6