Portraying the new COVID-19 variations as the “trump card”, a top World Health Organization official has cautioned that the Omicron won’t be the final remaining one and the chance of other new variations is extremely high.

During a back and forth discussion live gushed on WHO’s online media stages on Tuesday, the WHO Covid-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove said the worldwide wellbeing organization is following four distinct variants of Omicron.

“We know a great deal regarding this infection, yet we don’t know it all. What’s more in all honesty, the variations are the trump card. So we are following this infection progressively as it transforms as it changes… But this infection has a great deal of space to move,” she said.

“Omicron is the most recent variation of concern. It won’t be the last variation of worry that WHO will talk about. The following one, you know, that will come ideally, it will invest in some opportunity to arrive. Yet, with the degree of power of spread, the likelihood that we will have different variations is extremely high,” she said.

“So we really want to guarantee that we once more, increment inoculation inclusion, yet we likewise go to lengths to lessen the spread,” she added.

Since the assignment of B.1.1.529 as a variation of worry on November 26, 2021, a few heredities have been distinguished. These incorporate Pango genealogies BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3, which are generally being observed by WHO under the umbrella of ‘Omicron’.

“BA.2 is more contagious than BA.1 so we hope to see BA.2 expanding in recognition all over the planet,” Van Kerkhove said.

Read Also : Covid-19 : India reports 67,084 new cases, 1,241 more deaths

As per the UN wellbeing office’s week after week epidemiological report, delivered on Tuesday, the Omicron variation is progressively predominant – making up almost 97% of all cases.

“The pervasiveness of the Omicron variation has expanded internationally and is currently recognized in practically all nations. In any case, a considerable lot of the nations which revealed an early ascent in the quantity of cases because of the Omicron variation have now detailed a decrease in the absolute number of new cases since the start of January 2022,” it said.

Universally, during the seven day stretch of January 31 to February 6, the quantity of new Covid-19 cases diminished by 17% when contrasted with the number announced during the earlier week, while the quantity of new passings expanded by 7%.

As of February 6, more than 392 million affirmed cases and over 5.7 million passings have been accounted for worldwide. PTI

Read Also : Private Cryptocurrencies a threat to macroeconomy : RBI chief Shaktikanta Das