A study produced by researchers from Denmark concluded that the subvariant of Ômicron, BA.2, is more transmissible than the original variant, of lineage BA.1.
The researchers verified the incidence of contamination in more than 8,500 Danish homes.
According to the study, BA.2, from Covid-19, was first identified in the country on December 5, last year. In the last week of 2021 alone, BA.2 was responsible for around 20% of all Danish Covid-19 cases.
In the second week of January this year, the number of infections caused by the subvariant increased by about 45%.
According to the researchers, this indicates that BA.2 has an advantage over BA.1 in the population of Denmark, which contains high rates of vaccination.
“We conclude that Omicron BA.2 is inherently more transmissible than BA.1, and that it also has immunoevasive properties, which further reduce the protective effect of vaccination against infection. But they do not increase the transmissibility of vaccinated individuals”, say the scientists in the study.
Another point observed by the study is that when the initial individual was vaccinated with the booster dose, the transmissibility of the variant was lower than in cases of people vaccinated with only two doses or a single dose of the immunizer.
The research also concludes that despite the mutations and the higher transmissibility of the variant, the results indicate that the vaccines continue to have an important effect.
“However, both booster-vaccinated and fully-vaccinated individuals had reduced susceptibility and transmissibility compared to unvaccinated individuals for both subvariants, suggesting that vaccine efficacy remains significant,” the researchers point out.
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Source: CNN Brasil
