Risk of reinfection for those who have overcome other variants of COVID-19 increases with omicron

Health authorities in Africa warned this week that the risk of reinfection for people who have already overcome the contagion of covid-19 in other variants increases with omicron.

According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, scientists from South Africa continue to intensify their research to understand the level of contagion, the severity and the impact of the new variant with respect to current vaccines.

Also, the WHO pointed out that the characteristics of this new variant are still unknown with certainty, but that the data suggest that it would be a “With a higher risk of infection.”

Anne von Gottberg, del National Institute of Infectious Diseases from South Africa (NICD, in English), revealed that there is a significant increase in infections in people who previously had Covid with the variant Delta.

“In our population, which has a high seroprevalence of the virus, that is, many people have had a previous infection, it does not protect them from a new infection by omicron”The microbiologist told the press.

On the other hand, John Nkengasong, the director of the African Union Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), noted that “There is very little information right now to draw conclusions about gravity, we will know in the next two weeks.”

“We have to be patient to receive the reports from the hospitals and thus be more systematic”, continuó from Gottberg.

According to data from the WHO, the case of infections with the omicron variant increased by 331%% during the week prior to November 30. The organization noted that the variant has at least 32 mutations.

In the last 24 hours prior to this report, at least 8,561 new cases were registered. Compared to last Tuesday where there were 4,373 people infected.

“We hope to find the omicron variant in all the provinces and it seems very likely that it will replace the delta that, anyway, was expanding at low levels”, he pointed Richard Lessells, an expert in infectious diseases from the University of In KwaZulu Natal.

“The data suggests that omicron is able to bypass some of our immune protection, but protection against serious illness and death that comes from vaccines should be less affected”, He assured.