Immunologist at West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), Dr Yaw Bediako, has expressed confidence in the ability of the current trove of vaccines in the country to provide protection against the newly detected Omicron virus.

According to him, although the introduced vaccines in the system can potentially withstand the mutated virus, there is a likely tendency that there might be a bigger mutation of the COVID-19 virus which the vaccines might not aptly fight off its impact.

Dr Bediako explained that it is necessary for the Ghanaian public to engage in the vaccination drive and observe all the necessary protocol as they have done since the entrance of the COVID-19 virus.

“We are quite confident the vaccines will continue to provide protection. The expectation is that the vaccines will still maintain a good level of effectiveness against Omicron. So, the vaccines are still the best to control the spread. But as time goes on there is always a risk of a variant emerging that will be able to evade the vaccine… The emergence of Omicron should be giving us the necessary push if people are not already vaccinated to go out and get the vaccines. Because the vaccines are currently the only way to protect ourselves against the virus”.
Dr Yaw Bediako

Mutating impact of the COVID-19 virus

Elaborating on the scope of the new variant of the COVDI-19 virus, Dr Bediako revealed that the Ghanaian public is not alone in not knowing much about Omicron since no one really knows much about it right now. He noted that what they are privy to is that, the variant is a type of SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is similar to Delta, Alpha and Beta.

“Omicron was first reported by scientists in South Africa. It does not mean it originated in South Africa, that is just the first place that it was described. It has since been found in at least thirteen other countries, many of which are in Europe. What has led the WHO to categorize it as a variant of concern is the fact that it has a large number of mutations, some of which are similar to mutations that are found in Delta and Beta. For that reason, there is some concern that Omicron maybe highly transmissible and may be able to invade our body’s immune system”.
Dr Yaw Bediako

Dr Bediako explained that, currently, there is no evidence yet to prove that tests that are ongoing will really identify and determine whether or not this variant is actually as problematic as some people fear. He indicated that it is too early to tell and all that is known is that it is a variant which appears to be “spreading” quite quickly.

“It is not Omicron’s capacity to mutate. It is SARS-CoV-2 in general. Variants of a virus emerge when a virus mutates and changes its genetic makeup and it’s changed enough for it to be classified as a different variant from what it was before. So, the original SARS-CoV-2 variant that emerged in Wuhan in 2019 has overtime been mutating and every time it mutates enough for it to be different from what we had before we call it a new variant”.
Dr Yaw Bediako

Just like hundreds of mutations subject to a virus, Dr Bediako emphasized that Omicron is equally the resultant effect of a mutation. The difference, he explained is that Omicron has “a lot more” mutations than seen previously. Omicron, he clarified, has at least “fifty mutations” compared to the original Wuhan strain.