Everything you care about the new Omicron mutant
Recently, a new mutant of the Coronavirus has appeared, which continues to amaze us with its various developments and mutations since its appearance in late 2019, and the World Health Organization called it the Omicron mutant.
Researchers from South Africa and Botswana announced their discovery of a new mutant of the Coronavirus, with countless mutations, most of which are in the part that helps the virus to enter and infect cells, and due to the increase in the number of infections in South Africa within a few weeks, the World Health Organization has recognized that it is a new worrisome corona mutant and named it The Greek name is Omicron.
What is Omicron?
Omicron is the latest mutant of the Coronavirus, so when a virus is happy to spread and cause huge numbers of infections, as is the case with Covid-19, the chance of changes and mutations on it increases. Previous studies conducted on the Corona mutant that appeared before helped build predictions about this new mutant, Omicron, and what they found is that it shares with the alpha mutant the P681H mutation that helps facilitate the transmission of the virus from one person to another when it is present with other mutations. N501Y, for example, helps the virus get into cells easier and faster, and mutations may help the virus hide from the immune system.
But all these predictions, based on previous mutants and mutations, are still early and need time and more studies to confirm their effect on the virus.
What should be noted is the World Health Organization's classification of the Omicron mutant as worrying, which means that it may worsen the epidemiological situation due to its possible rapid spread and transmission, or the possibility of new symptoms of it other than the ones we are accused to, or that the usual precautionary measures against the Coronavirus are insufficient to limit its spread. , but these are just possibilities for now.
What are the symptoms of Omicron?
Due to the tiny number of cases, there is no evidence that the omicron mutant has symptoms that are distinct from the preceding Coronavirus mutant. of infections recorded with this mutant. So far, as is the case with another mutant, the person with the Omicron mutant may not show any symptoms, and if it appears, it is similar to the usual symptoms of the corona.
Are current vaccines effective against mutant Omicron?
Because the Omicron mutant is still recent in the scientific arena, there is no sufficient and conclusive information about the effectiveness of current vaccines against it, and whether the recipients of the vaccine are protected from its complications, but what is indicated by the preliminary evidence and according to previous studies conducted on previous mutations and changes found in Omicron currently There are more changes in the spike protein in the omicron variant than in the variants that appeared before, and what must be clarified is that the spike protein is the protein targeted by vaccines.
Thus, it is expected that a possible decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine against Omicron will appear, but there is still an urgent need for more studies to make a conclusive verdict in the matter, and it is very important to obtain the currently available Coronavirus vaccinate and to take the booster dose of it if more than 6 months have passed since the dose. The second is to reduce complications of infection and reduce the possibility of death from it, as the vaccine still has a very important role in controlling the Covid-19 epidemic.
For more: Global Health: No deaths have been recorded from Omicron so far
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