Ómicron: the graphs showing the 5 variants of SARS-CoV-2 that the WHO considers “of concern”

Ómicron, a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, was first identified in South Africa on November 24.

It has already been reported in several countries and preliminary evidence suggests that it may have an increased risk of reinfection, according to the WHO.

Ómicron is one of the five variants that the international organization considers to be “of concern”. This is how he calls those to which they are associated one or more of the following changes as they significantly affect public health globally:

This category includes the alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants, identified for the first time, respectively, in the United Kingdom, India, Brazil and South Africa.

In addition to those “of concern”, there are those considered “of interest” (VOI). These are those whose genome presents mutations compared to the reference virus and have been identified as a cause of community transmission or detected in several countries.

One of them is the lambda variant, which was first found in August 2020 in Peru, when it was called C.37 or “Andean variant” and is now present in 29 countries, according to data from GISAID, a global science initiative that provides open access to data genomic diseases of the coronavirus.

Another is the variant mu, identified in Colombia last January and is present in 40 countries.

Of all those identified by the WHO, there are 14 variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have ceased to be monitored because they are no longer circulating at levels considered significant for global public health.

The reasons may be because they have been circulating for a long time without causing a great impact on the epidemiological situation of the countries or because scientific evidence has shown that these variants are not associated with worrying properties.

Among them are the mutations formerly known as epsilon (identified in the United States), zeta (identified in Brazil) and theta (identified in the Philippines). All three have already been classified as variants of interest.

The question of the name

Since the beginning of June, the body has used the letters of the Greek alphabet to refer to the different variants.

It is a measure, he points out, to simplify the discussion and help remove stigma that can cause a variant to be associated with the name of a country.

“No country should be stigmatized for detecting and reporting variants,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO covid-19 technical leader, tweeted in late May.

However, in naming the new mutation, the techs ran into some hurdles. The correct letter after mu, in the order of the Greek alphabet, would be nu, whose pronunciation is similar to the word new (new in English).

The next one would be xi, but this is a common surname, the WHO said in a statement to Reuters.

So the WHO decided to skip those two letters and name the new variant Omicron.

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