The virologist whose discovery of the Omicron variant sparked Covid-19 travel bans on SA says if it happens again he will stop sharing his data internationally.
Tulio de Oliveira, head of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, said he would continue sharing data with the SA government, however, “to guide our own response”.
De Oliveira made his comments during an interview with Nature about his laboratory's latest discovery: the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron.
On April 1, bioinformatician Eduan Wilkinson noticed the appearance of several abnormal SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in new data and discovered they had gone unnoticed for several weeks.
Virologist issues warning to world over Covid-19 travel bans on SA
Image: Stellenbosch University/Stefan Els
The virologist whose discovery of the Omicron variant sparked Covid-19 travel bans on SA says if it happens again he will stop sharing his data internationally.
Tulio de Oliveira, head of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, said he would continue sharing data with the SA government, however, “to guide our own response”.
De Oliveira made his comments during an interview with Nature about his laboratory's latest discovery: the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron.
On April 1, bioinformatician Eduan Wilkinson noticed the appearance of several abnormal SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in new data and discovered they had gone unnoticed for several weeks.
Omicron had 'probably already spread globally', say top SA scientists as they slam travel bans
The subvariants have now been detected in nine countries — SA, Botswana, Belgium, Denmark, the UK, China, France, Germany and Portugal — and scientists are working to decide whether the effect is serious enough to warrant interventions.
De Oliveira told Nature he is not panicking. “It’s just time to work carefully and diligently, but calmly,” he said.
Immunologists are exposing samples of BA.4 and BA.5 to blood from people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and people who have been vaccinated to assess the resilience of immunity.
“This is why we straight away gave samples to researchers around the world,” said De Oliveira.
After identifying BA.4 and BA.5, he also met the government and said it accepted his advice not to impose stricter regulations.
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