Phew, we are going to escape a new scare linked to a variant of the coronavirus!

Omicron's BA.2 sub-variant, which is spreading rapidly in Denmark in particular, does not “cause a more severe form” of Covid than the BA.1 variant which circulates widely in the world, and has “a level of severity similar in terms of the risk of hospitalization, ”said Maria Van Kerkhove, who oversees the fight against Covid-19 at the WHO, during a question and answer session on social networks.

This finding "is really important, because in many countries there was a substantial amount of circulation of both BA.1 and BA.2."

She thus reported the conclusions drawn on Monday by an Advisory Committee of experts on the evolution of the virus which gives Covid-19.

Reassuring and long-awaited conclusions after the concerns caused by the pre-publication (therefore not controlled by peers) of a study on hamsters which seemed to show that on the contrary BA.2 inflicted more serious forms.

No reinfection with BA.2

Another piece of good news, although Dr. van Kerkhove insists it's still too early to draw definitive conclusions, concerns reinfections.

“While we are seeing a drop in cases in countries, we are not seeing a recovery with BA.2,” she notes.

"It's important and it's something we're watching very closely," she said.

“At the moment there seems to be significant protection between BA.1 and BA2 and vice-versa,” underlines Dr. Anurag Agrawal, member of the Advisory Committee.

This means that if you have been infected with Omicron BA.1 or BA.2 you are protected at least for a period of 6 to 8 weeks.

No older data are available, the BA.2 sub-variant having appeared only recently.

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  • WHO

  • Health

  • Variant Omicron

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid-19

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