An official from the World Health Organization (WHO) said that there is increasing evidence that the symptoms of the Omicron mutation, a COVID-19 mutation, are relatively milder than the previous mutation.
Abdi Mahamud, an official from the WHO's COVID-19 emergency management support team, said, "This could be good news" .
However, he took a cautious stance citing the relatively high proportion of the young population in South Africa, where the omicron mutation was first reported, and the recent slowdown in the spread of COVID-19.
They also feared that the highly contagious nature of omicron mutations could pose a threat in countries where many people have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine.
The official also emphasized that while it is still too early to answer the question of the need for a vaccine for Omicron, the decision should not be left solely to the commercial sector.