Brazil has at least five confirmed cases of the BA.2 subvariant of Ômicron. According to the president of the Brazilian Society of Virology, Flávio Fonseca, the emergence of new strains of the variant was expected by specialists.
In an interview with CNNFonseca explained that “when there is a virus multiplying very intensely, billions and billions of people being infected, the result is the emergence of variations – mutations in these mutants – forming what we call a lineage”.
So far, cases of BA.2 have been recorded in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina.
The expert stated that the new strain has 20 mutations in relation to the initial Ômicron variant, known as BA.1. According to him, it is still unclear whether the subvariant is more transmissible or more resistant to vaccines.
“It’s important to keep an eye on this new strain, to really see if it’s going to become a concern or not,” he said.
Regarding the coming weeks, the expert stated that the numbers indicate that we are currently experiencing the peak of the Ômicron and that the trend is for the curve to begin to decline.
“It is more or less predicted for Brazil, in epidemiological calculation, that the peak of Ômicron happened now at the end of January, in these first two weeks of February. And then the tendency is for it to go into a very sharp decrease”, he evaluated.
Source: CNN Brasil
