The Centre for Medical Genomics of the Faculty of Medicines at Ramathibodi Hospital has reported Thailand’s second confirmed case of the Omicron BA.2.75.2 sub-variant infection in a Thai woman.

The centre said that the BA.2.75.2 sub-variant is five times more transmissible than the BA.5 sub-variant and four times faster than the BA.4.6 variant and is immune evasive to all treatments, including Long Acting Antibody (LAAB) or Evusheld.

The centre said, however, that there is no cause for panic as the sub-variant has been found in 464 cases worldwide so far, including two cases in Thailand, citing information from GISAID.

The centre did warn that people must not drop their guard, failing that the BA.2.75.2 sub-variant may replace BA.4.6 and BA.5, currently the dominant sub-variants.

The centre stressed the importance of sequencing all COVID-19 viruses within 24-48 hours, to determine whether they are Delta or Omicron and to identify which Omicron sub-variant they are, such as BA.2. BA.4, BA.4.6, BA.5, BA2.75 or BA.2.75.1 or BA.2.75.2, so treatments in the future will be more specifically targeted at certain sub-variants.

According to the World Health Organisation, the new Omicron variant, BA.2.75.2, is spreading rapidly in India and has been detected in many other countries, although their numbers are small.

Geographic distribution of BA.2.75.2 is as follows:  India, 143 cases; US, 112 cases; Singapore, 43 cases; Australia, 20 cases; South Korea, 20 cases; Austria, 19 cases; Japan, 18 cases; Israel, 13 cases; Britain, 13 cases; Canada, irusi13 cases; and Germany, 8 cases.