The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has emerged as the most common type among cases reported in the nation.
Dr. Peter Quarshie, Senior Research Fellow and Lead for COVID-19 programs at the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), said that “the data we had up to the middle of December showed that Omicron was about 80% of the circulating virus.”
This is despite the emergence of the virus in late November.
In contrast, it took around two to three months for the Delta variant of the virus to become the dominant virus in Ghana.
“It was only in July that Delta reached that level of 80 percent whereas for Omicron, the first samples were in late November or early December, and already, it is about 80 percent of all the samples we were sequencing,” Dr. Quarshie said to Citi News.
Despite the rapid spread, he emphasized that there was no need for concern since “people are not getting severely sick.”
“Even as our numbers are the highest they have ever been since COVID-19 started, the admissions at the treatment center are all low.”
He linked this to the immunization of many of the positive test subjects.
Dr. Quarshie, on the other hand, said that “from a patient viewpoint, there are more people who are getting sick than previously because it is spreading so much.”
Currently, there are 11,403 active cases of the virus in Ghana, with 1,332 deaths.
In all, 152,243 cases have been identified across the nation.
Ghana’s vaccination efforts have resulted in 2.8 million of the country’s 30 million people being completely vaccinated, with 6.6 people receiving at least one dose of the vaccine.
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SOURCE: CITINEWS
