New Delhi: An initial study by South African scientists suggests that the new covid variant Omicron is three times more likely to cause reinfections than the Delta or Beta strains.
The study that was carried out based on the country’s health system provides the first epidemiological evidence about Omicron’s ability to evade immunity from earlier infection. The paper was uploaded on a medical preprint server and has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Juliet Pulliam, Director of the South African DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis, tweeted, “Recent reinfections have occurred in individuals whose primary infections occurred across all three waves, with the most having their primary infection in the Delta wave.”
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However, Pulliam warns that the study is in its initial stages and more data is required for better understanding. Moreover, the author did not have information about the individual’s vaccination status and could not assess to what extent Omicron evades vaccine-induced immunity.
Notably, following the detection of the Omicron variant first in South Africa, now it has spread to more than 25 countries, raising concerns among the citizens.
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