Covid-19: What We Know About Omicron Sub-Variant BA.2.75 Detected In India

The World Health Organisation has said a new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in countries like India.

“On covid-19, globally reported cases have increased nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks. Four out of six of the WHO sub-regions saw cases increase in the last week,” WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there had been an emergence of a sub-variant that was being called the BA.2.75. The variant, she said, was first reported from India and then from about 10 other countries.

She said the sub-variant seems to have a few mutations on the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. "That's a key part of the virus that attaches itself to the human receptor. It's still too early to know if this sub-variant has properties of additional immune evasion or indeed of being more clinically severe."

So far, BA.2.75 cases have been reported in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi. There has been an uptick in Covid-19 cases over the last few weeks while the experts are monitoring the new variant to study its effects.