South African study shows COVID severity of Omicron BA.1, BA.4, BA.5 all similar Omicron Coronavirus Disease COVID BA1 BA4 BA5 medrxivpreprint UCT_news WitsUniversity StellenboschUni UKZN TheCrick
Study: Outcomes of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection during resurgence driven by Omicron lineages BA.4 and BA.5 compared with previous waves in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Image Credit: Cryptographer / Shutterstock
Omicron BA.4/BA.5 VOC mutations appear to give an advantage in growth over the BA.2 variant and immune evasion from BA.1-elicited and vaccine-derived antibodies. Importantly, the global reports of BA.5 and BA.4 infections are increasing currently. During the present assessment, the SARS-CoV-2 waves were characterized as beginning and terminating when the public sector COVID-19-linked hospitalizations' seven-day moving average rose above and fell below five and 12 per million people, respectively. The authors considered cases identified one week before the wave initiation and a week before the wave end date to address the delay between infection, initial symptoms, and hospitalization.
The team did not directly compare BA.4/BA.5 with BA.2, as BA.2 outbreak in the Western Cape did not result in a discernible increase in infections. Furthermore, earlier reports demonstrated a similar illness severity between BA.2 and BA.1. Besides, the scientists noted that the exact burden of hospitalizations and deaths was substantially lower in the BA.5/BA.4 waves than depicted by them, with the peak seven-day moving average of hospitalizations and deaths was 222 and 36 in the BA.1 wave relative to 66 and nine in the BA.4/BA.5 wave.
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