WHO says that omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants have spread to more than a dozen countries

May 16, 2022: -Omicron subvariants BA.4, and BA.5 have spread to more than a dozen countries, which helped fuel sporadic Covid outbreaks worldwide. Although, the World Health Organization said that the heavily mutated strains are still going around at low levels.

Below 700 cases of BA.4 have been detected across nearly 16 countries. Over 300 points of BA.5 have been found across at least 17 countries; WHO is the technical lead on Covid, Maria Van Kerkhove said during a Q&A on the organization’s social media platforms.

While the two sublineages don’t make people sick as the original omicron strain, they appear to be more contagious, Van Kerkhove said. She noted the WHO will monitor BA.4 and BA.5 to determine if they will eventually overtake BA.2 as the dominant strain worldwide.

“We don’t know how this variant will behave, how these subvariants will behave in other countries with a dominant wave of BA.2,” Van Kerhkove said. “This is what remains to be seen.”

The two subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5 have high rates of detection in South Africa in particular, according to Kerhkove.

According to a report released by the U.K.’s Health Security Agency last week, South Africa reported 395 cases of BA.4 and 134 cases of BA.5 as of May 6, the highest numbers across all countries. Countries aren’t sequencing the genetic data for every Covid case, so actual infections are increased.

According to the report, just over 36 cases of BA.4 were found in Austria, 24 in the U.K., 20 in the U.S., and 17 in Denmark. The report said that Belgium, Israel, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, and Botswana all reported under 10 cases of BA.4.

According to the report

, a few of 57 cases of BA.5 have been detected in Portugal, 52 in Germany, and 17 in the U.K. The report said that the U.S., Denmark, France, Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Israel, Norway, Pakistan, Spain, and Switzerland reported fewer than 10 BA.5 infections.

The report noted the number of sequences is low, but “the apparent geographic spread suggests that the variant is transmitting successfully.”