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"Simply overlooked": Omicron has apparently been around for a long time - but the variant was not recorded

2022-12-04T13:45:24.874Z


"Simply overlooked": Omicron has apparently been around for a long time - but the variant was not recorded Created: 04/12/2022, 14:32 By: Kathrin Reikowski The development of the Omicron variant was simply overlooked - here a healthcare worker from Soweto preparing for tests. © Denis Farrell/AP/ dpa picture radio In November 2021, the news of a new corona variant got through. But omicron has b


"Simply overlooked": Omicron has apparently been around for a long time - but the variant was not recorded

Created: 04/12/2022, 14:32

By: Kathrin Reikowski

The development of the Omicron variant was simply overlooked - here a healthcare worker from Soweto preparing for tests.

© Denis Farrell/AP/ dpa picture radio

In November 2021, the news of a new corona variant got through.

But omicron has been around for longer, as researchers have now discovered.

Berlin – The variant later known as Omicron BA.1 had more than 50 mutations in the genome of the original corona virus.

It was first detected in mid-November in a patient in South Africa.

By the end of December 2021, it had already supplanted the previously dominant Delta variant - worldwide.

A cooperation between the Berlin Charité and various African research institutes has now shown that the development did not happen so quickly: the Corona variant Omikron had been around longer than expected.

A study by the Charité, together with cooperation partners from Africa, has now been published in the specialist magazine.

Contrary to what is assumed in widespread hypotheses about the origin, the variant developed gradually over several months in different African countries.

However, due to a lack of analysis, this development was not recorded.

"The development of Omikron was simply overlooked," says the Charité website about the study.

Omicron variant: study examines more than 13,000 corona samples from Africa

For the "Science" study, Charité scientists, together with African cooperation partners, examined more than 13,000 corona samples from 22 African countries using a special PCR test.

The research team found viruses with omicron-specific mutations in 25 people from six countries who had already contracted Covid-19 in August and September 2021, months before the first detection in South Africa.

In addition, the viral genome was decoded in around 670 samples.

Several viruses were found that showed similarities with omicron, but were not identical.

"Our data show that omicrons had different progenitors that mixed and circulated in Africa at the same time and for months," explains Professor Jan Felix Drexler, who led the study.

"This indicates a gradual evolution of the BA.1 omicron variant, during which the virus has become better and better adapted to the existing immunity of humans."

Omikon: Previous hypotheses on the origin of the corona variant refuted by a study

Compared to the original Sars-CoV-2 from Wuhan, Omicron had an unusually high number of around 30 amino acid changes in the spike protein alone.

The large number of genetic changes led experts to assume that the variant might have developed in a person with HIV or another form of immune deficiency.

Another hypothesis assumes that omicrons developed in animals and then jumped back to humans.

From the data of the study, the scientists also concluded that omicron first dominated the infection process in South Africa and then spread from south to north across the African continent within a few weeks.

Omicron does not come from the animal kingdom - monitoring systems are to be expanded

"The sudden appearance of the omicron is therefore not due to a transfer from the animal kingdom or the development in an immunosuppressed person, even if that could also have contributed to the development of the virus," Drexler concludes.

"The fact that we were surprised by Omikron is instead due to the diagnostic blind spot in large parts of Africa, where probably only a fraction of the Sars-CoV-2 infections are even registered."

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And the Charité warns: "It is therefore important to significantly strengthen diagnostic monitoring systems on the African continent and in comparable regions of the Global South and to facilitate data exchange worldwide.

Only good data can prevent potentially effective containment measures such as travel restrictions from being taken at the wrong time, causing more economic and social damage than good,” says Drexler.

At the beginning of the omicron wave, Germany was also criticized for the lack of genome analyses.

(dpa/kat)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-12-04

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