Sikhulile Moyo was the first to discover the omicron variant. He explains which viruses might be challenging following Corona.
While new variants of the corona virus have repeatedly appeared since the outbreak of the pandemic, only omicron subvariants are currently found. New variants of the virus are no longer catching on and there have been no waves of infection so far. But why is that?
“The virus got stuck in this omicron niche,” said virologist Sikhulile Moyo, who was the first to discover the omicron variant, to the Tagesspiegel. So the virus doesn’t change. Looking at the evolution of the virus, it shows that vaccination and built-up immunity are also involved.
Omicron: What will protect us from a deadly wave of infection
The virus continues to be transmitted at high levels worldwide. But: It is no longer reflected in hospital stays and deaths because the population is immunized. Virologists currently believe that – even with new variants – immunity in the population would protect the world from the next deadly wave of infection.
We have grown in spirit is a virologist at the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership. He leads the lab at the Harvard HIV Reference Laboratory in Botswana and is a Research Fellow at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. In November 2021, he and his lab were the first to identify the Sars-CoV-2 omicron variant. In 2022, Moyo was named to Time’s 100 Most Important People list.
After Corona in Germany: These viruses will be challenging in the future
“We are seeing a sharp increase in outbreaks of zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever,” says Sikhulile Moyo. The viruses are transmitted by mosquitoes or ticks. This is also bad news for Europe: Here, too, there have been Outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya. Moyo: “We are in the process of establishing a global consortium for genomic monitoring and pathogen identification.”
The virologist believes these viruses might become the next global challenge. It is all the more important to invest in global health. “So that we have an early warning and response system,” says Moyo. “So that outbreaks do not become epidemics and epidemics do not become pandemics.”
Because of Omikron BQ.1.1: Signs of an imminent end to the pandemic?
Virologist Christian Drosten also sees the rapid succession of the latest corona waves as a sign that the corona pandemic will end soon. According to the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, a winter with Omikron BF.7 would be the much “better case”, as he says in an interview with Die Zeit. Why he hopes that omicron BF.7 and not the omicron subtype BQ.1.1 will soon become the dominant variant.
