Director of the Center “Vector”: Four strains of “omicron” were isolated in Russia

In Russia, four independent genome-wide strains of the omicron coronavirus have been isolated from different tourists returning from other countries. Director of the Vector Center Rinat Maksyutov announced this today at an international conference, RIA Novosti reports.

At the same time, Rospotrebnadzor told the agency that at the moment it is still known about only two patients in the Russian Federation with “omicron” – just the study was carried out by two different institutes.

At the same time, TASS clarifies that we are talking about four genome-wide “variant sequence” of a new strain of coronavirus.

Recall that the new strain of coronavirus B.1.1.529, which contains 32 mutations in the S-protein, was first identified in South Africa and Botswana in early November. The infected were found in Hong Kong, Belgium, Israel. At an emergency meeting on November 26, the World Health Organization recognized B.1.1.529 as “of concern” and named it “omicron” after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. Omicron has a large number of mutations, it also spreads faster than the delta type. A new strain of coronavirus with increased mobility has been found in more than 55 countries, including Russia.