The new sub-variant of Omicron in China is creating a ruckus these days. Due to Omicron’s new sub-variant Stealth, lockdown has been implemented in many cities of China. It has been learned that after China, a new variant of Corona has also been knocked in South Korea. After which the government in India has also issued an alert. A high-level meeting of health officials was held on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
According to Health Ministry officials, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has directed the officials to strictly comply with three aspects. Research on high level of alertness, intensive surveillance of infection and genome sequencing as cases escalate.
This new sub-variant of Omicron, the Stealth, has made its knock not only in China, but also in other countries including Western Europe, the US, Germany and South Korea. After which there is a sudden increase in the cases of corona in these countries. So all these developments are being seen as a new sub-version of the Omicron version of the coronavirus.
The meeting with Mandaviya was attended by top doctors, Health Secretary, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), NCDC chief and Drug Controller General of India.
Rapid test started for the first time in China
Significantly, on Tuesday, 5,280 new cases of coronavirus were registered in China, which is the highest since the start of the epidemic. Not only this, for the first time, due to the increasing corona cases in the country, China started the rapid test. This marks its biggest outbreak so far since the early days of the pandemic. China has announced a lockdown in metropolitan cities like Beijing and Shenzhen. After which crores of people have been imprisoned in their homes.
What is stealth variant
This sub-variant of Corona is also called BA.2 variant. This sub-variant is different from the original variant. This sub-variant is more worrying because it is so difficult to detect. This sub-variant is missing a critical key mutation in the spike protein. Due to this key mutation, rapid rapid PCR test can be done to identify corona infection. Preliminary research suggests that it spreads faster than the original Omicron.