For the first time, cases of the Omicron BA.2.75 sub-variant were detected in France on Friday 22 July. One person tested positive in Occitania.
While it was reported for the first time in May in India and several European countries, the Omicron BA.2.75 sub-variant was detected for the first time in France on Friday July 22. “Three cases in France, including one in Occitania”, specified Adeline Riondel, epidemiologist of the Occitanie unit of Public Health France.
“The information concerning the 3 positive cases in France was released during the press conference this morning”, she detailed in a letter. RTL specifies for his part that the other infected people have been tested in the Grand Est and in Martinique.
No “case symptom information”
Nicknamed “Centaur”, this subvariant derives from BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron reports West France. The particularity of this sub-variant is that it has “a lot of mutations on the Spike protein”, specified the epidemiologist from Public Health France.
An opinion shared by Étienne Simon-Lorière, head of the Evolutionary Genomics of RNA Viruses Unit at the Institut Pasteur. Asked by the HuffPosthe said that “this is the first time that we have seen the emergence of a second generation variant, that is to say deriving from an already worrying variant, BA.2, with many mutations without explanation”.
However, there is not yet “information on the symptoms of the cases”, according to Adeline Riondel.