The first five cases of the BA.2 subvariant of omicron, known as the “silent variant,” were detected in Uruguay, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MSP).
This lineage of omicron is described as silent because it does not have the genetic marker that researchers had been using to determine, by antigen testing or PCR, whether an infection is omicron (BA.1) or delta strain .
The Minister of Health, Daniel Salinas, shared the news on his Twitter, explaining that the cases were found by the genomic sequencing surveillance of the Interinstitutional Working Group (GTi), confirmed by the Institut Pasteur, the University of the Republic (UdelaR ), the ATGen laboratory and the MSP.
The MSP clarified that, according to information from the World Health Organization (WHO), his arrival was an “expected event”, and “there are no elements to consider that he behaves differently from what has been observed.”
