WHO said that the BA.2.75 covid sub-variant reported from India and some other countries ‘seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein' A new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has been detected in India and some other countries, are being closely tracked by the World Health Organisation, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The WHO said that new covid cases reported across the world has seen a spike over the past two weeks. “In Europe and America, BA.4 and BA.5 are driving waves.
In countries like India a new sub-lineage of BA.2.75 has also been detected, which we’re following," he said. 1) WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that there has been an emergence of a sub-variant that is being called the BA.2.75 “first reported from India and then from about 10 other countries." 2) She said there are still limited sequences available of the sub-variant to analyse, “but this sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein.
So obviously, that's a key part of the virus that attaches itself to the human receptor. So we have to watch that. It's still too early to know if this sub-variant has properties of additional immune evasion or indeed of being more clinically severe.