The World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday warned that the newly discovered Coronavirus variant ‘Omicron’ is more transmissible than the prior Delta strain and reduces vaccine efficiency against the infection.
The WHO informed that the deadly variant (B.1.1.529) of SARS-CoV-2 causes less severe symptoms, based on early data.
According to the WHO, initial evidence showed that Omicron caused a reduction in vaccine efficacy against infection and transmission. “Given the current available data, it is likely that Omicron will outpace the Delta variant where community transmission occurs,” it further said.
The effect of the infection due to the new Omicron variant is mild or asymptomatic cases, but the global health body said the data was insufficient to determine the variant’s clinical severity. A faster transmission of this variant was recorded in South Africa and in Britain.