Just as the world has opened up its borders after months of lockdown due to the deadly global Covid-19 pandemic, China has once again imposed strict lockdown norms in several areas due to the spread of the virus in the country yet again.
In the midst of the fresh Covid curbs and travel restrictions imposed in China, two highly contagious sub-variants of the Omicron variant have been detected in the country, which has greater transmissibility than all other sub-variants detected yet.
The two Omicron sub-variants - BF.7 and BA.5.1.7 – can also prove to be very dangerous for the public since it has the potential to spread uncontrollably if not contained timely, according to health experts.
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According to local reports, the BF.7 was detected on October 4 in Yantai and Shaoguan city. The subvariant BA.5.1.7 was detected in the Chinese mainland for the first time, as reported by Global Times. Meanwhile, a warning has been issued against the two variants by health agencies.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also issued an advisory regarding the spread of the high infections BF.7 subvariant of Omicron, which has been detected in the Shaoguan and Yantai cities of China, and is slowly spreading to other areas.
As new Covid-19 cases are spiking across China, health experts believe that these cases are mostly of the new sub-variants of Omicron detected in the country. Though the fatality rates of the new sub-variants are not yet known, their infection rate is alarming and can spread across a large population.
The WHO has predicted that the BF.7 sub-variant of Omicron can be the new dominant variant of Covid-19 across the world. However, that does not mean that vaccines against Covid-19 don’t work against the BF.7 variant. It has been tested that Covid-19 medicines and vaccines can prove to be effective against this highly infectious variant.
(With inputs from agencies)
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