New Covid Omicron sub-variant BA.2.75 found in India: WHO

On the emergence of the potential Omicron sub-variant BA.2.75, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said in a video posted on Twitter that there has been an emergence of a sub-variant that is being called the BA.2.75, first reported from India and then from about 10 other countries. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that a new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in nations like India and that the global health organization is monitoring the evolving situation, days after an Israeli expert claimed that a new sub-variant of Omicron, which may be alarming, has been found in 10 Indian states.

As per WHO, globally reported Covid cases have increased nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks. This has triggered a scare of the fourth wave of coronavirus in the country. 

Four out of six of the WHO sub-regions saw cases increase in the last week, Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing Wednesday. 

According to WHO’s Swaminathan, there are still limited sequences available of the sub-variant to analyse, but this sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. 

The WHO weekly epidemiological update on Covid-19, released July 6, said that globally, the number of new weekly cases increased for the fourth consecutive week after a declining trend since the last peak in March 2022.

During the week of June 27 to July 3, over 4.6 million cases were reported, a figure similar to that of the previous week. The number of new weekly deaths declined by 12% as compared to the previous week, with over 8100 fatalities reported.