The Omicron variant of the covid-19 is now the most dominant variant of cases being recorded in the country in recent times.
A senior Research fellow and Lead for COVID-19 projects at the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), Dr Peter Quarshie said “the data we had up till the middle of December showed that Omicron was about 80 percent of the circulating virus.”
This is despite the emergence of the virus in late November.
In comparison, the Delta variant of the virus took about two to three months to become the dominant virus in Ghana.
“It was only in July that Delta reached that level of 80 percent whereas for Omicron, the first samples were in late November or early December, and already, it is about 80 percent of all the samples we were sequencing,” Dr Quarshie said to Citi News.
Despite the fast spread, he stressed that there was no cause for alarm because “people are not getting severely sick.”
“Even as our numbers are the highest they have ever been since COVID-19 started, the admissions at the treatment centre are all low.”
He attributed this to the vaccination of many who tested positive.