New Omicron sub-variant, first reported in India, detected

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A new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in countries like India and the World Health Organisation is following this, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"On Covid-19, globally reported cases have increased nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks. Four out of six of the WHO sub-regions saw cases increase in the last week," Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing Wednesday. WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said in a video on Twitter there has been emergence of a sub-variant being called the BA.2.75 "first reported from India and then from about 10 other countries."

She said there are still limited sequences available to analyse, "but this sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. So obviously, that's a key part of the virus that attaches itself to the human receptor. So we have to watch that. It's still too early to know if this sub-variant has properties of additional immune evasion or indeed of being more clinically severe. We don't know that. So we have to wait and see."

9,25,099
No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

54,89,90,094
Total no of cases worldwide

63,41,637
Total no of deaths worldwide

Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins

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