The South African doctor Angelique Coetzee, discoverer of the omicron mutation of the coronavirus, assures that all the patients “are very well and none have presented problems worthy of mention.”
Despite the alarm that the appearance of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has generated around the world, causing million-dollar falls in the Stock Exchanges and the cancellation of flights with South Africa, where it was detected, the doctor who discovered it launches a message of tranquility for the low virulence that at the moment it is showing. “So far no patient affected by the omicron has been hospitalized. And we have not found serious effects “, explained Angelique Coetzee, president of the Association of Doctors of South Africa and member of the group of sanitary experts that advises the Government of the southern country.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper ‘La Repubblica’ published this Monday, the South African doctor said that patients who have been detected the new coronavirus mutation have mild symptoms that disappear after two or five days. These consist of “tiredness, headache and itchy throat”, typical of a mild cold and that do not coincide with those caused by the previous variant, the delta. All the patients “are doing very well and none have presented problems worthy of mention,” the expert insisted. Symptoms were equally mild for both those who were vaccinated and those who were not, who have so far been more than half of those infected.
12 days have passed since the first case of the mutation was discovered, which took place in mid-November when a 33-year-old man presented himself to the South African health services. “He had different symptoms than what I had seen so far. I decided to do the test because we were facing a viral infection. When the fourth member of his family tested positive and with the same mild symptoms, an alarm went off, “said Coetzee, who then chose to notify other colleagues. Thus began the investigation of the sequence of the virus until the confirmation arrived on November 22 that it was a new variant, which days later the World Health Organization (WHO) would baptize with the Greek letter ‘omicron’.
The South African doctor explained that those infected with this last strain infect a number of people similar to those with the delta mutation. «Only the members of the family of ‘patient zero’ were infected. The other contacts of the positive cases were all negative ”, declared the expert, for whom the contagiousness and virulence of the omicron demonstrated so far is not greater than that of the previous variant. However, it will still take about two weeks to know what the consequences of the mutation discovered in South Africa are and thus be able to draw conclusions, since so far the number of people infected in the southern country with the new strain of the coronavirus is relatively low.
Like South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who demanded the lifting of travel restrictions to his country “urgently” because they have no “scientific justification”, Coetzee also considered it “exaggerated” that many Western nations have ended flights with South Africa and other States in the area. «We will surely see other cases with this variant, but they are not really sick. I would have understood the closure if we had witnessed an explosion with serious effects, but it is not like that. None of them have been hospitalized, “the doctor insisted, noting that the situation in Gauteng, the province where the first cases of the omicron variant were located, is” calm. ” “Do not panic.”
The evolution of the first case in Italy of a patient infected with the new mutation also invites tranquility. This is an executive from an energy company who recently traveled to Mozambique and who, for the moment, has only mild symptoms. The same happens with the five members of his family who he has infected and who, like him, remain in isolation. The man had already received two doses of the covid vaccine.
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