Researchers in Botswana and South Africa have detected new sub-lineages of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 and are carrying out further investigations to fully understand crucial traits such as infectivity and virulence.

The identified sub-lineage variants are BA.4 and BA.5. The World Health Organization (WHO) disclosed that its experts are working with scientists and researchers in the two countries to deepen analysis of the sub-lineages which have so far been identified in four people in Botswana and 23 in South Africa. Outside Africa, the BA.4 and the BA.5 have been confirmed in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The WHO stated that currently, there is no significant epidemiological difference observed between the new sub-lineages and known sub-lineages of the Omicron variant, which include BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3 sub-lineages.

Despite the new detected version of the virus, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said there is no need to worry since the virus is yet to be proven as deadly.

“There is no cause for alarm with the emergence of the new sub-variants. We are not yet observing a major spike in cases, hospitalizations or deaths. We are working with scientists in Botswana and South Africa to gain complete behavioral knowledge of these sub-lineages and supporting African countries enhance genomic surveillance to detect potentially dangerous variants and stay ahead of the virus”.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa

Need for enhanced genomic surveillance

WHO therefore, calls on countries to enhance genomic surveillance to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database and report initial cases or clusters of cases linked with a variant of concern to infection to WHO.

Additionally, countries are encouraged to undertake field investigations and laboratory assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of variants of concern on COVID-19 epidemiology such as severity, effectiveness of public health and social measures, diagnostic methods, immune responses, antibody neutralization or other relevant characteristics.

The Organization also recommended that countries sequence at least 5% of all positive samples. With support from WHO and other partners, Africa has made strides in ramping up sequencing capacity, having sequenced six times as many samples in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.

A recent analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that up to 65% of Africans have been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. The study found that true infections on the continent were 97 times larger than reported confirmed cases.

The analysis, which is available as a pre-print under peer review, synthesized 151 studies published on seroprevalence in Africa between January 2020 and December 2021. It found that exposure to SARS-CoV-2 skyrocketed from 3% (1.0-9.2% range) in June of 2020 to 65% (56.3-73% range) by September of 2021, or 800 million infections compared with 8.2 million cases reported at that time. The study showed that exposure to the virus rose sharply following the emergence of the Beta and the Delta variants.

The analysis revealed that the true number of infections could be as much as 97 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases. This compares to the global average where true number of infections is 16 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases.