Centre identifies more contagious virus among Omicron variants
The Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 have already been discovered among Thais, while BA.3 is yet to be found in Thailand, the Centre of Medical Genomics wrote on its Facebook page on Tuesday.
The centre said that the Omicron BA.1 has been found in 514,417 patients worldwide, of which 561 are Thais.
"The Omicron BA.2 has been found in 10,811 patients worldwide and two of them are Thais," the centre explained. "Meanwhile, Omicron BA.3 has been found in 86 patients worldwide but no Thai has been infected so far."
The centre said the Omicron BA.2 has been nicknamed the “stealth variant” due to difficulties in comparison between BA.2 and Delta variants using RT-PCR method.
"In this regard, the UK Health Security Agency announced BA.2 as a variant under investigation on January 21 this year," the centre said.
The centre added that it has not faced any difficulties in identifying Covid-19 variants, thanks to genotyping technology that enables the centre to provide test results in 24-48 hours.
"However, it remains unclear whether Omicron BA.2 can develop more severe symptoms than BA.1, but the epidemiology information shows that BA.2 is likely to spread faster than BA.1," the centre added.
