About 3 days ago, the WHO officially described as disturbing the new variant of Covid-19, originally discovered in South Africa and identified as "Omicron". Its rapid spread in some European countries has caused panic in the world, but how endangered are we and what is known so far about it?
During a direct link for "Abc Live", the director of vaccine development "Geovax", Arben Domi said that at the moment we are still in the phase of hypotheses and the measures that are being taken are preventive. Regarding the high number of mutations, Domi said that according to him this could be good or bad news.
"At the moment we are in the phase of hypotheses, based on the number of mutations there are about 30 mutations in the spike area which is responsible for recognizing the antibodies produced by vaccines. At the moment there are no accurate data, and all the measures that have been taken may seem exaggerated, but in my opinion they are simply preventive for a possibility in the future, because it will take another two or three weeks to learn the degree of the importance of this variant. In my opinion this variant may be disturbing, but so far we need to be careful and not on alert.
There are an abnormal number of mutations. The large number of mutations can affect the developmental cycle of the virus which can slow it down or weaken it. "But let's not speculate, let's wait for the data." - he concluded.
As for the country of origin, South Africa, the director of vaccine development said that this is a fact can be considered as good news, unlike what it would be if detected in a country where the vaccination rate is up.
"It simply came to our notice then. But if it happened in a country where the number of vaccinations is high it could be taken as a kind of response of the virus to vaccines. "But in South Africa such an element does not exist. I do not think it is a reaction of the virus to escape vaccination."
According to him, this winter will be accompanied by an increase in the number of infected people and hospitalizations, mainly during December-January.
"December and January will have a significant increase in the number of infected, and hospitalized over the age of 60, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not."
