The World Health Organisation says the latest BA.2 variant of the Omicron coronavirus is no more virulent than the original strain.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Geneva-based UN health body said that based on samples taken from people from various countries, "we are not seeing a difference in severity of BA.1 compared to BA.2."
Senior WHO official, Maria Van Kerkhove reported that the new variant has "a similar level of severity as it relates to risk of hospitalisation."
She underlined this was an important discovery as many countries have had a substantial circulation of both of BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains.
Live Q&A on #COVID19 variants of concern, including Omicron's sub-lineage BA.2 with Dr @mvankerkhove, Dr @lsubissi and Dr @AnuragAgrawalMD. #AskWHO https://t.co/qFaYz0RnRv
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 22, 2022
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Data suggests Covid-19 is declining
Van Kerkhove, who leads the technical side of the WHO's Covid-19 response team, was reporting the findings of a committee of experts tracking the evolution of the virus.
The conclusions come as a relief to countries such as Denmark, where the BA.2 variant of Omicron circulates widely.
The WHO added, however, that initial data suggests the new BA.2 variant "appears inherently more transmissible than BA.1," and that further studies are underway to discover why this is the case.
On a positive note, the WHO declared that the global circulation of all variants of Covid-19 is declining.
To date, the coronavirus has killed more than 5.8 million people worldwide,
But taking into account excess mortality linked to Covid-19, the WHO estimates the true death toll could be two to three times higher.
