Omicron variants won't lead to surge: Expert

May 24, 2022 17:32

After India witnessed cases of the sub-variants of Omicron, Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman of the Indian Medical Association's national task force on Tuesday said that these newly-detected sub-lineages will not cause a surge in infections but people still need to be vigilant.

"The sub-variants of Omicron (BA.4 and BA.5) are not going to cause a surge in cases, still, we need to be vigilant. You know that Omicron took off at a much higher rate in many countries, including India, but South Africa's experiences reassure us that these two sub-lineages are not going to cause a large scale problem if we are careful enough," Dr Jayadevan told ANI.

He clarified that BA.4 and BA.5 are not new viruses, rather, these are just sub-lineages of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 infection.

"Basically, Omicron took off from one branch of the genomic tree and these are the smaller branches of Omicron itself so they are not new viruses. We know that this virus is continuously adapting to the human host in order to escape our immunity and also to travel faster between people," said Dr Rajeev.

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