Netherlands health authorities have found the omicorn variant in a test sample from November 19, a week before the World Health Organisation labelled it a “variant of concern”. The finding shows that the variant was present in Europe before South Africa officially reported it.
“We have found the Omicron coronavirus variant in two test samples that were taken on Nov. 19 and Nov. 23,” the Dutch health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is not yet clear whether these people had also visited southern Africa.”
South Africa has been hit by multiple travel bans following its report on the variant, which it said showed 30 mutations in the spike protein—the part of the virus that binds to human cells and that vaccines typically target. US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci told ABC that the mutations strongly suggest it would be more transmissible and possibly even evade antibodies produced by vaccines.
The South African doctor who first spotted the variant, however, says the symptoms triggered by it were “extremely mild”. At least 10 EU states have confirmed infections of the variant, with 42 cases so far that were either mild or asymptomatic.
WHO has opposed travel bans and has urged countries to take “rational” measures.
“We call on all member states to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to countries.
Moderna’s chief executive has warned that existing COVID-19 vaccines would be less effective against Omicron than they were against Delta.
The UAE, meanwhile, has approved the use of Sputnik Light as a universal booster shot against COVID-19. Russia’s Gamaleya Institute has said that they are confident that their COVID-19 vaccines, both Sputnik V and Sputnik Light, could neutralise the variant.
