Clinical severity of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 lineages compared to BA.1 and Delta in South Africa

Nicole Wolter (), Waasila Jassat, Sibongile Walaza, Richard Welch, Harry Moultrie, Michelle J. Groome, Daniel Gyamfi Amoako, Josie Everatt, Jinal N. Bhiman, Cathrine Scheepers, Naume Tebeila, Nicola Chiwandire, Mignon du Plessis, Nevashan Govender, Arshad Ismail, Allison Glass, Koleka Mlisana, Wendy Stevens, Florette K. Treurnicht, Kathleen Subramoney, Zinhle Makatini, Nei-yuan Hsiao, Raveen Parboosing, Jeannette Wadula, Hannah Hussey, Mary-Ann Davies, Andrew Boulle, Anne von Gottberg and Cheryl Cohen
Additional contact information
Nicole Wolter: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Waasila Jassat: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Sibongile Walaza: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Richard Welch: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Harry Moultrie: University of the Witwatersrand
Michelle J. Groome: University of the Witwatersrand
Daniel Gyamfi Amoako: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Josie Everatt: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Jinal N. Bhiman: National Institute for Communicable Diseases of the National Health Laboratory Service
Cathrine Scheepers: National Institute for Communicable Diseases of the National Health Laboratory Service
Naume Tebeila: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Nicola Chiwandire: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Mignon du Plessis: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Nevashan Govender: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Arshad Ismail: University of Venda
Allison Glass: University of the Witwatersrand
Koleka Mlisana: University of the Witwatersrand
Wendy Stevens: University of the Witwatersrand
Florette K. Treurnicht: University of the Witwatersrand
Kathleen Subramoney: University of the Witwatersrand
Zinhle Makatini: University of the Witwatersrand
Nei-yuan Hsiao: National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS)
Raveen Parboosing: University of the Witwatersrand
Jeannette Wadula: University of the Witwatersrand
Hannah Hussey: University of Cape Town
Mary-Ann Davies: University of Cape Town
Andrew Boulle: University of Cape Town
Anne von Gottberg: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service
Cheryl Cohen: National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Omicron lineages BA.4 and BA.5 drove a fifth wave of COVID-19 cases in South Africa. Here, we use the presence/absence of the S-gene target as a proxy for SARS-CoV-2 variant/lineage for infections diagnosed using the TaqPath PCR assay between 1 October 2021 and 26 April 2022. We link national COVID-19 individual-level data including case, laboratory test and hospitalisation data. We assess severity using multivariable logistic regression comparing the risk of hospitalisation and risk of severe disease, once hospitalised, for Delta, BA.1, BA.2 and BA.4/BA.5 infections. After controlling for factors associated with hospitalisation and severe outcome respectively, BA.4/BA.5-infected individuals had a similar odds of hospitalisation (aOR 1.24, 95% CI 0.98–1.55) and severe outcome (aOR 0.72, 95% CI 0.41–1.26) compared to BA.1-infected individuals. Newly emerged Omicron lineages BA.4/BA.5 showed similar severity to the BA.1 lineage and continued to show reduced clinical severity compared to the Delta variant.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33614-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-33614-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33614-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().