NEW DELHI: There is now clear experimental and clinical data supporting very high immune escape potential of Omicron. Initial estimates show the severity of illness being lower than what was\u00a0 in previous outbreaks. The Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia INSACOG said in its latest bulletin citing global data.<\/p>\n
In India, appropriate public health measures and investigations are undertaken for surveillance of Omicron. INSACOG said while noting that globally there appears to be
\nsignificantly reduced ability of vaccines or prior infection to protect against symptomatic infection by the Omicron variant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Delta continues to be the most prevalent VOC globally, Omicron has completely displaced it in southern Africa and is on track to become the dominant variant in UK and
\nelsewhere,\u201d INSACOG said in its bulletin on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The genomic consortium, citing global data, said there is now clear experimental and clinical data supporting very high immune escape potential of Omicron, which appears to be the
\nmajor component of its growth advantage over Delta. \u201cInitial estimates of severity of illness have, however, been lower than seen in previous outbreaks. Whether these initial
\nobservations are generalisable to older non-immune subjects is not clear and the threat level is still\u00a0 high,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The INSACOG reports genomic surveillance of SARS CoV-2 through sequencing of samples from sentinel sites and also detailed state-wise district analysis for some states.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the first official statement from vaccine manufacturers on the likely efficacy of their shot against Omicron, BioNTech and Pfizer said in a joint statement that two vaccine doses resulted in significantly lower neutralising antibodies but that a third dose of their vaccine increased the neutralising antibodies by a factor of 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources"],"yoast_head":"\n