China News Service, Beijing, January 10 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The internationally renowned academic journal "Nature" recently published an epidemiological research paper online, which revealed that the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) variant strain Omikron ( Omicron) detection and transmission kinetics in South Africa suggest that immune escape may be a major contributor to the observed rapid spread of Omicron.
The peer-reviewed paper, recently accepted by Nature, describes the identification and early rapid spread of Omicron in South Africa by the team that first reported the discovery.
It is understood that the emergence and rapid spread of Omicron poses a threat to the world, especially to Africa, where less than one-tenth of the population has completed the full vaccination.
Corresponding author of the paper, Tulio de Oliveira of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, and colleagues analyzed the earliest 686 Omicron genomes (248 from South Africa and 438 from the rest of the world). ) found that, from the end of October to the end of November 2021, Omicron spread from Gauteng Province in South Africa to 7 of the remaining 8 provinces in South Africa, and also spread to two regions in Botswana.
The effective reproductive number, which is the average number of people an individual can infect in a partially susceptible population at any point in time, is estimated to be about 2.7 in early November to early December 2021.
As of December 16, 2021, 87 countries have identified Omicron in samples of returning travelers from South Africa or in samples routinely tested in the community.
As of early 2022, Omicron has been identified in more than 100 countries, and the Global Initiative for Sharing Influenza Data (GISAID) database has now published more than 100,000 genomes.
The authors of the paper point out that the Omicron variant is unique in that it has more than 30 mutations in the viral spike protein.
Its genotype and phenotype data show that Omicron has the ability to escape neutralizing antibody responses.
The simulations described in the newly published paper suggest that immune escape may be a major contributor to Omicron's observed ability to spread rapidly.
The authors of the paper believe that their findings are only based on early sequencing data and that close monitoring of the spread of Omicron in countries other than South Africa is necessary to better understand the transmissibility of Omicron and its escape from previous infections and the ability of vaccines to induce immunity.
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