GENEVA: World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared the new COVID-19 variant, emerged in South Africa while naming it 'Omicron', a Variant Of Concern (VOC).
A VOC has been WHO's top division of worrying COVID-19 variants.
WHO said iI possessed a large number of mutations, and early evidence suggested an increased reinfection risk. Moreover, the number of cases of this variant named B.1.1.529 initially appeared to be rising in almost all of South Africa's provinces.
South Africa first reported Omicron to the WHO on 24 November and then had been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
Moreover, according to one of the top UK health officials, vaccines would "almost certainly" be less effective against the new variant.
However, a number of countries globally have now decided to ban or restrict travel to and from Southern Africa.
It would take some more time to understand the impact of Omicron, as scientists had been working to determine how transmissible it was, WHO said.
