Omicron now most dominant COVID-19 variant in Ghana – WACCBIP

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has become the most dominant variant of cases being recorded in the country.

A senior Research fellow and Lead for COVID-19 projects at the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), Dr. Peter Quarshie said “the data we had up till the middle of December showed that Omicron was about 80 percent of the circulating virus.”

This is despite the emergence of the virus in late November.

In comparison, the Delta variant of the virus took about two to three months 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.

Despite the fast spread, he stressed that there was no cause for alarm because “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 centre are all low.”

He attributed this to the vaccination of many who tested positive.

Dr. Quarshie, however, added that, “from a patient viewpoint, there are more people who are getting sick than previously because it is spreading so much.”

Currently, Ghana has 11,403 active cases of the virus with 1,332 deaths.

In total, 152,243 cases have been detected in the country.

Ghana’s vaccination efforts have seen 2.8 million of Ghana’s 30 million population fully vaccinated, while 6.6 persons have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Source: CNR