Fears over new Omicron subvariant
<p dir="ltr">There are fears in China that a new subvariant of Omicron has been discovered.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The country recorded 13,000 cases of Covid-19 but found a different strain in a patient with mild symptoms.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Health officials in Suzhou, west of Shanghai, said the subvariant came from the BA.1.1 branch of Omicron.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“This means a new variant of Omicron has been discovered locally,” Zhang Jun, deputy director of the Suzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told state press agency Xinhua.</p>
<p dir="ltr">GISAID, the global database for mutations to be recorded, did not match with the new subvariant.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The subvariant has not yet been reported in any other parts of China or globally.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However, another variant has been reported in Dalian city, in northern China, which also does not match with any other variant in the database.</p>
<p dir="ltr">China is still aiming to eliminate the virus and placed the city of Shanghai, a population of 26 million, into lockdown last week to help lower cases.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty</em></p>
