Two cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2 were detected among flight passengers arriving from abroad at the international airport Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens, media report on Friday. The two cases were reportedly detected on January 13, 2022.
Samples of the suspicious cases were sent to the Institute of Biological Research of the Academy of Athens for genomic testing. The results reportedly came out on Thursday evening.
According to a press released by EODY, the travelers were placed in isolation and their contacts have been traced.
Gikas Majorkinis, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and member of the country’s epidemiologi sts’ committee stated that the sub-variant of Omicron, also called “stealth” because it is not easily detected, appeared in early December 2021.
The sub-variant has a mutation at position 67 that makes it undetectable by the classical method used for detection. At present, scientists seem to be waiting for more data, but they do not hide their concerns.
Magazine Fortune reported last week that the Omicron subvariant BA.2, nicknamed the ‘stealth Omicron,’ appears to be outpacing other substrains of Omicron in some regions of the world, raising fears that the even more transmissible version of Omicron could spark larger COVID-19 waves globally.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that Omicron, which is also referred to as B.1.1.529, has three main substrains, BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3. As of Dec. 23, the WHO reported that over 99% of the cases it sequenced were BA.1. But now, the rise of BA.2 in Denmark and elsewhere suggests that BA.2 may outcompete BA.1.
- On Thursday, Denmark reported that the BA.2 substrain of Omicron accounts for almost half of the country’s cases, and is quickly displacing BA.1, the original Omicron strain.
Denmark reported that in the two weeks from late December to mid-January, BA.2 has gone from accounting for 20% of Denmark’s COVID-19 infections to making up 45%. Over that same period, Denmark’s COVID infections have shot to record highs. Denmark is recording over 30,000 new cases per day this week, ten times more cases than peaks in previous waves.
Denmark’s government also said the strain is spreading quickly in countries like the U.K., Norway, and Sweden. Meanwhile, scientists in places like France and India warn that the BA.2 variant is quickly spreading and may outpace other Omicron strains.(full article on Fortune)
