2021165438+1On October 26th, the World Health Organization defined it as the fifth variant of concern, and named it the Greek letter Omicron, the variant of Omicron. 165438+129 October, WHO said that the overall risk assessment of COVID-19 Omicron mutant is very high in the world, and it may be widely spread around the world.
20221October 4th, 65438, WHO indicated that 128 countries and regions had reported the Omicron mutant before the Christmas and New Year holidays. In April, Liang Wannian, head of the expert group of the National Health and Wellness Committee's Leading Group for Epidemic Response and Disposal, said that the death rate of Omicron was 7.5 times that of influenza.
Discovery process
Omicron coronavirus is a COVID-19 mutant found in Botswana, a southern African country, and its toxicity and transmission are more terrible than Delta. There are 32 spike protein mutations, some of which will lead to virus mutation and immune escape. After the spike protein mutation, COVID-19 is more likely to attach to human cells, eventually leading to human infection with COVID-19 virus.
Earlier, a student group was found to be infected in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. The epidemic quickly developed from a few people to thousands, and spread to other cities in South Africa. For this reason, South Africa started research soon, and the sample time of this mutant was collected for the first time in 2002119. In the same year, South Africa reported the situation to WHO in 1 1 24.