The Weekly Report of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (English) on May 16 reported the first confirmed case of infection with the new coronavirus “Omicron” subtype strain “BA.2.12” in China .1” for the specific circumstances of imported cases abroad.
April 23, 2022, a International flight KQ880 from Nairobi, Kenya arrived at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in Guangdong Province. All passengers were transferred to quarantine hotels for 14 days of routine medical observation and routine nucleic acid testing.
One of the patients, a 27-year-old Chinese male, was reported to be positive for novel coronavirus nucleic acid on April 27, 2022. The patient has a complete Covid-19 vaccination history and no exposure to other Covid-19 cases in the past 14 days. After the diagnosis, he was transferred to the Eighth People’s Hospital of Guangzhou for treatment.
On April 30, 2022, the patient’s nasal swab samples were sequenced using the Illumina MiniSeq platform, and the genotyping results showed that the patient was infected with Omicron subtype virus. Strain BA.2.12.1. A total of 33 amino acid mutation sites were detected in the spike gene. Among them, L452Q and S704L are the key loci of BA.2.12.1 sub-lineage. The sequence has been submitted to the National Genome Data Center.
On May 4, 2022, the World Health Organization reminded close monitoring of subtype BA.2.12.1. The BA.2.12.1 subtype has a stronger immune evasion ability than other Omicron subtype strains, and some studies have shown that BA.2.12.1 spreads 23% to 27% faster than BA.2. The subvariant spread very rapidly, causing a resurgence of the epidemic in many parts of the United States, with cases reported in at least 17 countries.
(Source: Health Times Client, Global Times, Henan Commercial Daily)