World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke of a new sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19 that has now been detected in India.
Omicron sub-variants BA.4, BA.5 may fuel into a new Covid infection surge, a top health official in India said on 8 July. Ghebreyesus also talked about the global sudden surge in coronavirus cases. “Globally reported cases have increased nearly 30 per cent over the past two weeks.
Four out of six of the WHO subregions saw cases increase in the last week," he said. "In Europe and America, BA.4 and BA.5 are driving waves.
In countries like India a new sub-lineage of BA.2.75 has also been detected, which we're following," he added. The SARs-CoV-2 virus is a respiratory illness just like a common cold or influenza.