— ~175,000 nasopharyngeal samples analyzed for viral load— BA.2 nearly twice as much as BA.1 https://t.co/uqY9jkZxXX Last week, WHO said that the highly contagious Omicron subvariant, BA.2 is now the dominant version of Omicron around the world. “Globally, BA.2 made up about 86% of cases reported to the WHO between February 16 and March 17." The previously dominant subvariants, BA.1 and BA.1.1, together represented about 13% of the cases.
BA.2 is already dominant in the WHO’s Americas region and its share of cases has been steadily increasing in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East since the end of 2021, the agency said.
When the WHO last reported these figures, on March 8, it said that BA.1.1 was the dominant subvariant and that BA.2 made up 34% of new cases, WHO said in a statement.