WHO experts pointed out that the new “Omicron” variant appears to be more contagious than the previous ones.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, reiterated this Friday his request to rich countries to donate more vaccines , given the appearance in the South of the African continent of a new variant of the coronavirus baptized as “omicrón”.
“USA. it has already donated more vaccines to other countries than all other nations combined. It is time for other countries to match the speed and generosity of the United States, ”the president said in a statement.
Biden also said that the new variant makes it “even clearer” that the pandemic will not end until vaccines are available worldwide and reiterated his request that the intellectual property of vaccines be removed so that they can be manufactured anywhere in the world.
The White House announced that the restrictions will include, in addition to South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi and Eswatini.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today declared the new variant of the coronavirus detected in South Africa as a “risk variant” and baptized it with the Greek letter omicrón .
WHO experts pointed out that the new variant seems to be more contagious than the previous ones, although there is still no data to determine if it is more or less resistant to covid-19 vaccines.
So far, the omicron variant has been detected in South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong (China) and Belgium .