Speaking with PUNCH HealthWise, a Professor of Community Medicine and Public Health and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Adesegun Fatusi said new variants tend to be more transmissible because when changes happen to them, the changes are meant to overcome the protective mechanism of man.
“Usually, when a new variant comes out, it tends to carry some ability that it has learnt from the previous variant about how to overcome what is the barrier to the other variant.
“So, it’s like you’re fighting and somebody knocks you down and you learn the technique that he is using and then you come back to the next stage of the war, having understood the technique,” he said.
He, however, said the pattern of future variants cannot be predicted.
“Omicron has a higher transmissible rate than Delta but as it turns out in terms of the virulent, it is not as high as Delta, so the pattern is not predictable.
“Chances that the new variant will be more transmissible is high but the pattern is not predictable. This is because Omicron is transmitting very fast but it does not have a very high rate of virulence.
“It likely that a lot of people have had Omicron without knowing it because it is not showing much signs and symptoms. If a large number of people have had it, that will help us confer some immunity inadvertently but we don’t know how that immunity will last,” he said.
Fatusi, who is also the Chairman of the Ondo State Inter-ministerial Committee on COVID-19, urged people to take the COVID-19 vaccine for better protection.
“I know Nigerians are tired of wearing masks but the war is still on. We can expect that two things might happen with this virus – one is that it might become a virus that goes from being an epidemic to becoming endemic and the other thing is that we might be able to totally defeat the virus when a higher proportion of people have either taken the vaccine or have been infected and have immunity.
“Those are not all the possibilities though, because another virus might come and be more deadly,” he said.
Experts have established that Omicron has a significant growth advantage compared to other variants of concern.
They also say Omicron is overtaking Delta in terms of circulation, and it is very efficiently transmitted between people.
Recall that the World Health Organisation had on November 26, 2021, designated Omicron as a variant of concern.
The WHO said Omicron, initially known as B.1.1.529 has a high mutation rate and has 32 potential mutations in the spike protein.
According to WHO’s Technical lead for COVID-19, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Omicron will not be the last variant, and the possibility of future emergence of variants of concern is very real.
“And more variants that emerge, we don’t understand what those the properties of those variants may be. Certainly, they will be more transmissible because they will need to overtake variants that are currently circulating. They could become more or less severe, but they could also have properties of immune escape. So we want to reduce the risk of future emergence of variants of concern,” she noted.
The epidemiologist also recommends that people should maintain physical distancing, wear a well-fitted mask over the nose and mouth, make sure that they have clean hands, avoid crowds, get tested, and make sure that people seek appropriate care where needed.
“All of those measures, this layered approach are ways in which you can keep yourself safe and also protect yourself from getting infected and passing the virus to somebody else,” Kerkhove said.
Source: HealthWise
