Last night, we told you how the Ministry of Health received the first test result that confirms the presence of the BA.5 sub-variant in Belize.
As viewers are aware, BA.4 and BA.5 are subvariants of Omicron, one of the mutations that have emerged in the COVID virus throughout the two and a half years of the global pandemic. The Ministry of Health and Wellness noted that the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are the predominant forms of the COVID virus currently circulating in the United States and globally.
The problem is that some research has shown that these latest virus forms may still cause illness in persons who have recovered from previous COVID infections. In addition, these variants may evade the immunity protections that persons with vaccinations should have built up. That evasion is 3 or 4 times more likely to occur when compared to prior variants and subvariants of the virus.
So what changes for the Ministry of Health with the detection of this new variant? This morning, Dr. Melissa Diaz, Director of Public Health and Wellness, granted the press an interview on the topic via Zoom. Here's what she had to say:
Dr. Melissa Musa - Director, Public Health & Wellness
"Whenever we look at outbreaks, and especially in the pandemic, in the last two years, we've been describing waves. We have noticed that there are waves last for, depending on the severity, a certain period of time. And once measures are implemented and enhanced surveillance occurs, we tend to get control of the number of cases that we have. So, then we go to a wave, then we go back up to another trough and then we go back to another wave. At this point, since January of 2022, we have been dealing with the variant, Omicron. And Omicron has, as you all know, numerous sub-lineages or sub-variants. Usually, what we would see is an outbreak, for instance, would be BA.2, and then we'd have a lull in cases. Then, when another sub-variant arrives, we have an increase. But it seems now that although we have seen in the last two weeks, a slight reduction in the daily cases and in the 14-day rolling average, we see a reduction as well. It's not extremely significant. And with the BA.5 here now, we feel that more than likely, we'll continue with an increase in cases at this time. Most countries have - and I'm sure Belize will follow soon - gone through outbreaks with all these different sub-variants and more than likely, this is what we will continue to see now, [an] increase in cases. We know that BA.5 is very transmissible. BA.4 and BA.5 have been pulled together because these two sublineages tend to have very similar mutations. So, they are lumped together, but we have only detected five so far in the country. And of course with that detection, we really do feel that there are more cases in the country. So, we're waiting to get our second report, which should be out in the next week or so, to see exactly if the percentages have changed from BA.2 to BA.5."
