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The study, carried out on 5,114 people, showed evidence that the variant detected for the first time in the African country has had a 25% lower impact on hospitalizations and deaths than Delta. However, the scientists in charge indicate that this is mainly due to vaccination and previous infections.
A study carried out in South Africa begins to put numbers to what some scientific institutions, including Imperial College London, had already pointed out: the variant of the Covid-19 Omicron virus seems to have reduced its aggressiveness compared to Delta and the original variant .
This investigation determines that the disease caused by Ómicron is less serious and that it presents risks of hospitalization and death that are 25% lower than the complications caused by the wave of the previous pandemic, mainly carried out by Delta.
The research was carried out in the South African province of the Western Cape and compared the effects of the variant in 5,144 patients during the fourth wave of infections in the country, a fourth peak that has had an impact mainly caused by Omicron and that left 11,609 infections until the end. from December.
The study was carried out by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases of South Africa (NICD), in collaboration with health authorities in the Western Cape and the rest of the country.
Vaccination and previous infections, at the root of less aggressiveness
However, the scientists emphasize that the aggressiveness of Ómicron was attenuated not because it is less aggressive than the Delta variant or the original strain detected in the Chinese province of Wuhan.
In this sense, the study determined that the lower aggressiveness is due not so much to the variant itself, but to the change in the citizens’ defenses. And this would respond more to the effect that vaccines have had, as well as previous infections, in preparing the body of many citizens to respond to a new variant.
“In the Omicron-driven wave, severe Covid-19 outcomes were reduced primarily by protection afforded by prior infection and/or vaccination,” the study notes, “but intrinsically reduced virulence could represent a 25% reduced risk.” of serious hospitalization or death compared to (the variant) Delta,” he adds.
South Africa remains the epicenter of the pandemic in Africa. So far, the African nation has accumulated 3.5 million infections and registered more than 93,000 deaths.
In the country, although vaccination remains slow with less than 30% of the total population with a complete vaccination schedule against Covid-19, the NICD estimates that 70% of the South African population has already been infected with SARS-Cov -2 to date.
At the moment, the research has not been submitted to the review of the international scientific community, a step that is usually taken after the publication of this type of study and that has marked the rapid progress in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic since its inception.
with EFE
.