By Staff Writer
Omicron BA.1 confirmed by the Ministry of Health this week as the community transmitted COVID pandemic virus in Samoa, continues to spread with the daily count climbing higher all the time.
The total official count since 17 March 2022 is now at 2,279 with 203 new cases recorded at 2.00pm yesterday, Saturday 2 April 2022.
The BA.1 is one of 3 sub-variants of the Omicron virus and is the only one officially confirmed in Samoa.
Official medical literature listed BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3 as the same Omicron virus but has changed or mutated into 3 separate viruses or sub-variants already and continuing to do so.
Samoa had to wait for test results of 50 virus specimen sent to New Zealand laboratories just over 2 weeks ago to officially verify the variant.
Omicron BA.1 is by far the most common of the sub-variants, that had long spread out to New Zealand and Australia before it finally breached Samoa’s health security defenses to break out into the local community.
So far, much of the recent global attention appears to be on the BA.2 mutation catching up quickly and becoming dominant in many parts of the world it has spread to.
The Ministry of Health’s new total count for today shows 1,517 active cases while 761 people are confirmed to have fully recovered.
With the exception of 56 new carries counted in Savai’i all the rest are all in Upolu. None so far for the inhabitants of Manono and Apolima islands.