WHO issues strongest, most explicit warning yet about the new version, stresses that while scientists are looking for evidence to better understand it, countries should accelerate vaccinations
Others wait for their test at the laboratory. Pics/AFP
The World Health Organisation warned Monday that the global risk from the Omicron variant is ‘very high’ based on early evidence, saying the mutated Coronavirus could lead to surges with ‘severe consequences.’ The assessment from the UN health agency, contained in a technical paper issued to member states, amounted to WHO’s strongest, most explicit warning yet about the new version that was first identified days ago in South Africa. It came as a number of countries reported cases of the variant and moved to slam their doors in an act-now-ask-questions-later approach.
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Japan announced it is barring entry to all foreign visitors, joining Israel in doing so. Morocco banned all incoming flights. Other countries have moved to prohibit travellers from southern Africa.
A healthcare worker conducts a PCR COVID-19 test at the Lancet laboratory in Johannesburg on Tuesday
WHO said there are “considerable uncertainties” about the omicron variant. But it said preliminary evidence raises the possibility that the variant has mutations that could help it both evade an immune-system response and boost its ability to spread from one person to another. “Depending on these characteristics, there could be future surges of COVID-19, which could have severe consequences, depending on a number of factors, including where surges may take place,” it added. “The overall global risk ... is assessed as very high.”
The WHO stressed that while scientists are hunting evidence to understand the variant, countries should accelerate vaccinations as quickly as possible. Scientists have long warned that the virus will keep finding new ways to exploit weaknesses in the world’s vaccination drive, and its discovery in Africa occurred in a continent where under 7% of the population is vaccinated.
Passengers wait for a train at Hammersmith underground station in London. Britain has made masks compulsory on public transport and in shops. Pic/AFP
“The emergence of the omicron variant has fulfilled, in a precise way, the predictions of scientists who warned that elevated transmission of the virus in areas with limited access to vaccine would speed its evolution,” said Dr Richard Hatchett, head, CEPI, one of the founders of the UN-backed global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX.
Dutch authorities: Variant’s circulating 11 days ago
The Dutch health authority says it has found the new Omicron variant in two local cases going back as far as 11 days, showing it was already in western Europe’s heartland before the reports came out of South Africa last week. The RIVM health institute said it found omicron in samples from November 19 and 23.
Omicron cases in Japan and France
Japan and France confirmed their first cases of the new variant of the Coronavirus on Tuesday, as countries around the world scrambled to close their doors or find ways to limit its spread. French authorities confirmed the cases in the French island territory of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Japan on Tuesday confirmed its first case in a visitor who recently arrived from Namibia.
7 per cent
Vaccinated population in Africa where the new variant was found
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