Suara.com – The Omicron variant, first sequenced by researchers in South Africa and Botswana in November 2021, was found to be more contagious but causes less disease than its predecessor the Delta variant.
Being more contagious, Omicron quickly replaced Delta as the dominant variant worldwide. Currently, it accounts for 99 percent of all sorted cases.
Moreover, since its appearance, scientists have categorized the Omicron subvariants or lineages into three groups: BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3.
Although the BA.1 subvariance began as the dominant Omicron lineage worldwide, since December 2021, the proportion of Covid-19 cases associated with the BA.2 variant has increased rapidly.
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This raises concerns about the severity and transmission of BA.2. This is what researchers have found so far as quoted from Medical News Today
Omicron BA.2 subvariant overtakes BA.1
![Corona virus illustration. [Antara]](https://media.suara.com/pictures/original/2021/09/14/56506-ilustrasi-virus-corona.jpg)
BA.2 is particularly prominent in countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe. Recent analysis shows that it has replaced BA.1 as the dominant Omicron sublineage in Denmark, Singapore, India, South Africa, and Austria. The rapid increase in BA.2 is illustrated by the increase in its prevalence from 20 percent in the last week of December 2021 to 66 percent in the third week of January 2022 in Denmark.
The proportion of cases of BA.2 or stealth Omicron as it is also known in the United States has remained low at 3.8 percent so far, but health experts expect it to increase.
BA.2 seems to be more contagious
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Be careful, the stealth Omicron variant is 33 percent more contagious than the original Omicron
The rapid spike in the prevalence of BA.2 in several countries suggests that this variant is more infectious than BA.1. One study estimated that BA.2 could be contagious up to 33 percent more than BA.1 and thought that its spread could become a serious problem for global health in the near future.