Almost two years have passed since the covid struck in December 2019, and although vaccine has been introduced, the epidemic appears to be slowing down. However, the recent discovery of a new coronavirus variant (B 1.1.529) in South Africa has sent the world into renewed panic as this variant is even more virulent than the previous one. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has given this variant the Greek codename Omicron.
Foreign scientists have described this variant as possibly the “worst of the worst”, with an “unusual cluster of mutations”, a “surprising number of stinging protein mutations” and, presumably, a variant that is more infectious than previous viruses and may also effectively evade our body’s immunity.
The new variant was discovered on 11 November in Botswana, a neighbouring country of South Africa, and the first global case of B.1.1.529 infection was recorded on 14 November. To date, there have been less than 100 cases of infection with the new variant, mainly among the country’s least vaccinated young population. To date, 77 cases have been confirmed in Gauteng, South Africa, four in Botswana and one in Hong Kong.
In an effort to develop an effective drug against Omicron in the short term, scientists around the world are beginning to work on it, hoping to have the first hand experimental data on how Omicron works with vaccines in the next two weeks.
The biggest headache is that this new mutant strain does not yet know which vaccines it is resistant to, how far it can evade the immune system, whether it is more virulent than previous strains, and whether it spreads faster than Delta, all key things that need to be known at this point.
