More Infectious, Possibly Deadlier Variant Of COVID Could Follow Omicron: What WHO Said

With the Omicron cases rapidly coming down around the world there is renewed hope that we may finally see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic that has paralysed the world for more than two years.

But the World Health Organisation (WHO) has reiterated its warning that the next COVID-19 variant will be more transmissible, and perhaps, deadlier than its predecessors.

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¡°The next variant of concern will be more fit, and what we mean by that is it will be more transmissible because it will have to overtake what is currently circulating. The big question is whether or not future variants will be more or less severe,¡± WHO epidemiologist and technical lead on Covid-19 Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said.

"Evolutionary mistake"

Last month, Ravindra Gupta, Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases (CITIID), who led a recent study on the Omicron variant had said it was the result of an "evolutionary mistake" as COVID-19 is transmitting very efficiently and there is no reason for it to become milder, indicating that the next variant could be more virulent.

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"There is this assumption that viruses become more benign over time but that's not what's happening here because those are long-term evolutionary trends," Prof. Gupta told PTI.

Noted India virologist Dr T Jacob John had also expressed similar views and said that Omicron is not "fathered, or mothered, by Wuhan-D614G, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Kappa or Mu and That much is for sure".

"So in my opinion, this is a variant of unknown proximal parentage but great great grandparent was Wuhan-D614G... We shall see as the pandemic progresses," John, a former director of the ICMR's Centre of Advanced Research in Virology, said.

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"Since Omicron is illegitimate or 'deviant' from COVID-19 pandemic progression script, we must think of two pandemics going on side by side -- Delta and close relatives, and Omicron and its variants in future.

"Diseases caused by them are also different. One is Pneumonia-hypoxia-multiorgan damage disease but the other an upper/middle respiratory disease that pushes pre-existing chronic disease or old age beyond the wall," he said.

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On whether the upcoming COVID-19 variants would be more infectious but less lethal, John said generally new pathogens get adapted to human hosts and in the process tend to become more infectious and less pathogenic, within limits.

"Time frame is long, not one or two years... Remember, Delta came late but was both faster-spreading and more pathogenic," he said.

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