Amid a global uptick in the cases of the recently detected Omicron coronavirus variant, Australia has reported a new lineage of the strain that is harder to detect with "typical screening".
"Queensland state found the new omicron lineage in an inbound traveller from South Africa. The new lineage has about half the gene variations of the original and cannot be detected with typical screening," the state's acting chief health officer Peter Aitken was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
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According to Aitken, the new lineage has enough markers to be classified as Omicron but not enough is known about severity and vaccine effectiveness.
The new lineage has about half (14) genome mutations of the traditional Omicron variant.
"It does not have the s-gene dropout feature, which makes it harder to track through PCR testing," Aitken said, adding that the findings would "lead to improvements in people recognising potential spread of Omicron in all communities".
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The World Health Organization's chief of emergencies, Dr Michael Ryan, said on December 8 that Omicron data, so far, is pointed to a virus that's probably more efficiently transmitting than the delta variant, which is by far the most widespread and deadly version.
Concerns have been raised about Omicron that first emerged in southern Africa, prompting some countries to shut their borders fearful of the long-term impact of a possible new variant of the virus that has already infected at least 267 million people and killed more than 5.2 million.
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